Here are some of the things we went through in the workshop last month.  There was a lot of content to cover which meant restricting the amount of sets and lighting styles to cover each one in depth.  Our model for the day, Vicky provided all the outfits whilst hair and makeup was done by studio owner  Becky Hampson.   We started off with a simple beauty shot to talk about setting up 3 lights one at a time, starting with the key, using the light-meter to get the others at the exact ratio we wanted.  The background is provided by a 1.2 metre octabox, facing the camera and back-lighting the model.  Fill is provided by a strip box from below, and the key light is a diffused beauty dish.  This is a pretty formulaic and easily repeatable setup – it’s a bit like building your own Photo-Me! booth for beauty shots: once it’s set up and the lights are dialled in, you can just blast away.  There are lots of variations on this using reflectors instead of a second softbox for fill or with a Tri-Flector, or with a front-lit background and so on.  I like this set-up as the background light washes over the edges of the model – you just need to be careful not to crank up the background light too much or the light will eat into the edges of the hair and other fine detail.  You can meter this to get started, however this is really a creative decision – I tend to start at 2 stops over the key light, with the octabox about a foot behind the model. Continue reading →

Ever since I watched Joe McNally’s video about making a stroboscopic shot of ballet dancer Jen Concepcion, I wanted to shoot more dance.  Moreover I couldn’t get that shot out of my head.  I’ve learnt a lot of from Joe’s books and videos over the past year or so, and never travel without at least 1 speed-light these days (those rumours about me sleeping with an SB900 under the pillow are unfounded though).  Of all the shots I’ve watched Joe set up and make, this had to be the most complex in terms of technical lighting.  Not in terms of lighting finesse you understand – there are much more subtle arrangements of lights in Joe’s work.  But, shot in 3 parts, in camera with 3 commanders and for sheer speed-lightery, this was the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique of lighting – and as time went by, I just had to try it to get it out of my head…. Continue reading →

Or “early man” fashion shots really. These are pretty basic in terms of creative input, however I wanted to give the basics a go in terms of more even, full length lighting, and getting the background right!  It sounds simple doesn’t it:  just blur the background to even out the inevitable wrinkles in your seamless paper or vinyl?  I tried a number of ways of doing this:  brushing on -100 clarity in Lightroom with the adjustment brush using the “auto mask” feature.  I tried feathering the brush, not feathering the brush; cleaning the edges after with the eraser.  I got close, however at 100%, there was always a perceptible halo round the model.  I tried blurring in Photoshop and masking the model by brushing the mask on; and a 100 variations.

Then I watched Frank Doorhof’s video on how he processes his fashion shots – ( On Kelby Training – go there now!  You’ll like it ).  I’d watched Frank’s great lighting videos, but never his Photoshop ones as, well, they have Matt Kosklowski’s tutorials on there – why would I watch Photoshop tips from Frank ? He’s the lighting guy!)  However, Frank’s technique for blurring out the background really works, and it’s not even that tedious to do!

In a nutshell:   Duplicate the image; on the duplicate layer, select the background using the tool of your choice (I used the magic wand).

Keep clicking until most of the background is selected, but don’t pay any attention to small areas caused by loops of hair and don’t worry about getting the selection perfect.   Invert the selection.  Expand the selection by 1-2 pixels so now you have a  rough selection of your model with a small margin around them.  Cut out the selection (your model).  You can still see the model from the layer below.  Blur the duplicate layer at maximum Gaussian blur.  Get rid of the banding this produces by adding the same amount of noise to this layer as your camera produces  (for my Nikon D800E, this is around 1% at ISO 100).

Paste the model back.  This produces a 3rd layer:  merge down.   Now zoom in to 100% and click the duplicate layer on and off and marvel at the seamless join.  You can then mask off the blurred layer to suit, say on shadows cast on the floor or for any fine tuning around the hair etc.  Full size in the People gallery as usual.

Apart from that, these shots used a 1.2metre white octabox, with both baffles in place up high to camera left, and a gridded strip box pretty much opposite the octa to camera right and behind the model.  The background is a grey seamless vinyl, not specifically lit.

Model:  Ellie Anderson – Body Couture Agency.  Clothes and make-up by Ellie.