Volunteered the kid again. CC please

[The_Traveler]

Although you've moved way away from this, let me point out some things that occurred to me.

To me this looks to contrasty for a child's photo, too dramatic - and a bit cold and harsh.

There are also a bunch of design elements, besides the light, that a viewer would see.
When you have a symmetrical pose like this, elements that contradict and distract from it are noticeable.
His knees are at different heights, as are his shoulders.
Although his face is erect the midline of his body is tilted.
(My guess was that after he sat you might have asked him to tilt his head to the right so it would look vertical)
The in-focus lines of the chair are at an odd angle to the vertical and don't mesh with the background.

 

[minicoop1985]

Actually, I tried VERY hard to pose him before, and he just didn't understand what I was asking him to do, so I kinda just told him to sit with his legs crossed and hoped for the best. I will, however, take that into account when shooting adults.

 

[The_Traveler]

Actually, I tried VERY hard to pose him before, and he just didn't understand what I was asking him to do, so I kinda just told him to sit with his legs crossed and hoped for the best. I will, however, take that into account when shooting adults.

This is the part of reason I never shoot portraits.
AFAIC, sitting someone down and arranging lights, just drains all the life out of the scene, it's unreal.

I've never liked it and haven't used my lights for years.

 

[tirediron]

...AFAIC, sitting someone down and arranging lights, just drains all the life out of the scene, it's unreal.

I've never liked it and haven't used my lights for years.

And I would respectfully disagree. There are occasions where ambient light only is appropriate, and others where strobed light is essential, and many (most?) where a mix of the two works best. At the end of the day, effective use of light is the fundamental cornerstone of photography regardless of whether you use ambient light only, or take the lazy way out and add light over which you have total control.

 

[minicoop1985]

I'm trying to learn so I can light adults, mainly. They'll cooperate when it comes to posing... Also I have some headshots to shoot for a law firm coming up in a little bit and I need to know what I'm doing well enough to light em up.

 

[Derrel]

Added a hair light. First shot, it was WAY too powerful. Second, it could have been bumped up a bit, but it's noticeable.

Leaf_000725 by Michael Long, on Flickr

Let us discuss THIS, one, specific image, above:

Hair light is too specular...needs a diffusing material over it to cut the harsh "raw light" look to the light. Do you see the sort of almost-white, specular reflection on the hair? The hair light itself is too hard of a light source. This is why I am so insistent that you watch those Dean Collins videos. This raw light also strikes his ear and neck, because you have no light control tool that can handle it--like a barn door set...

Basically, at the exposure being used on the lens, say f/8 just as an example, with the amount of light the umbrellas are providing to set the diffused highlight value on his face--the hair light's intensity is simply too high...the highlighting on his hair looks like a speedlight. Like raw, un-diffused speedlight photons, striking his dark hair, and creating a very bright highlight on that dark hair, ear, and back of the neck. That light looks too bright, in proportion to the OTHER LIGHT sources, their size, their degree of specularity, and the exposure used by the camera.

The hairlight's light beam needs to be softened, lowered, made a bit larger, yet controlled so it does not spill too far forward. You need to "tame" the hairlight by one of several ways.

My favorite is a honeycomb grid (20 or 35 degree one), a barn door set, and one, or two thicknesses of TuffSpun in FRONT OF the grid, on a 11.5-inch diameter parabolic reflector. (103.86 square inches)

Many people will tell you to use a honeycomb grid, or even worse, a snoot. The grid is the first step. Adding the TuffSpun or Speedotron's mylar diffusers, is the final step to getting a gorgeous hair light or rim-light that defines, but is SUBTLE, and does not look like the 1980's, with a speedlight placed close to the head.

Not trying to make fun of you...but you've got a MASSIVE, diffused key light, and a MASSIVE diffused fill light source...and then a 3-square inch hairlight. A pure, almost point-source light. And then two, roughly 1,256 square-inch umbrellas.

 

[Derrel]

The_Traveler, post: 3597721, member: 12413"]...AFAIC, sitting someone down and arranging lights, just drains all the life out of the scene, it's unreal.

I've never liked it and haven't used my lights for years.

Those who can't do, preach.

"I only like what I know."

Studio lighting requires understanding, skill, education. MOST people are utterly ignorant about how to do it.

"Classical music SUCKS--give me some good old Dean Martin records and I'm a happy camper."

Opinions are like...

Yeah,yeah,yeah, we've heard your opinion on formal imaging for years. You obviously have no clue on how to use lighting equipment...your lifeless images show it. You are very much like the guy in the modern art museums across the USA, you know, the one saying brilliantly unenlightened nonsense like, "Any one of my ten grandkids could have painted this crap!"

This genre of photography is nothing like shooting street urchins in Southeast Asia...or shooting snaps of anti-gay protestors holding up signs with slurs on them, in the Washington, D.C, area, but there are people who actually understand how to do formal portraiture, and informal portraiture, and who have an actual understanding of lighting. That's kind of what the OP is working on improving--his skill set and his understanding. he is working on a discipline, of MAKING images, instead ofd stealing scenes from people on the street. It's the difference between CREATING the entire image, down to the last element, and just snatching one that is simply found.

Maybe you could contribute something, instead of s****ing upon something you don't know how to do?

 

[minicoop1985]

You are correct, Derrel, all I used was a speedlite for a hair light. I had it set on the wrong channel, so it fired FULL tilt. That's the main thing wrong with that photo. I dialed it down a LOT for the shot in the Star Wars shirt, and I feel like though quite specular, it was a massive improvement. I need my third strobe back, I think.