Portrait practice part 3
On a very rare weekend in town with nothing for me to do, I got a hold of my buddy Lina. After finding out she was just as bored, we met up to toy around with more studio stuff. This time we would shoot indoors. I was fully expecting to crash and burn since I had never really done a three lighting set up. Continue reading to see how this turns out.
Before the shoot I had to make a quick trip over to Tempe Camera to buy some white seamless paper for my backdrop. The problem with buying it I didn’t realize till I had outside to my car and began to figure out how the hell I was gonna get it to fit in my GTO. Below is as good as I could do.
The box of paper stuck out the side of the car about 8 inches which I figured would be no problem.
3 miles down the road when I was being pulled over did I realize that perhaps it was a problem.
The officer was very friendly and after I explained what it was he told me no problem. A few minutes later I was back on the road to head home to set up my poor mans studio in the garage.
The set up was two Alien Bee 1600watt lights on the sides and an Alien Bee Ring Flash as a fill light. The setup looked like this.
Heres a view from the other direction.
While Lina used the spare room at the house to change I did a quick test shot to get a baseline set up for the shots. My roommate was gone so I resorted to setting the camera on timer on the ground and standing in for the shot.
After a minute or two Lina was ready to go and we got started with some simple shots.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f5.6, 1/250th
Nikon D3, 85mm, 100iso, f7.1, 1/250th
Then I decided to try some shots with the ring flash. I did so in a bit of different fashion from how most use them.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f5.6, 1/250th
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f5.6, 1/250th
At first glance people seemed to think the effect was attained by shooting through some sort of prop for the framing effect.
WRONG!
Lets zoom out a bit and you will see how the effect was attained.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f5.6, 1/250th
By simply not putting your lens into the hole on the flash you can use the edges of it to make a black frame around the subject. Some may argue that the shot sucks, and perhaps it does, but I like it.
Next I turned one of my lights back towards me to bounce off the back wall and light the back of the ring flash to try and have a cool colorful electronic look to it…..didn’t look near as cool as I envisioned.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f5.6, 1/250th
Next I grabbed my roommates weight bench from the corner of the garage and stood on it and looked straight down on Lina for a different perspective.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f8, 1/250th
Lookin straight down on her looked pretty cool so I put the lens all the way into the ring flash to eliminate the black framing and here is how it looked.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f8, 1/250th
Here is the uncropped version of that shot for those of you who may be confused. (the red box shows the crop)
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f8, 1/250th
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f8, 1/250th
On the right you will see my Macbook Pro which was playing some Sirius Satellite Radio so that it wasn’t awkwardly silent during the shoot.
As has seemingly become a trend for me I did a shot of Lina with the strobes overly bright to bring out her eyes.
Nikon D3, 85mm, 100iso, f5.6, 1/250th
Then it was time for Lina to change outfits so while she was gone I changed up the lighting setup. I dropped down to a two light setup with a blue gel on the background light and a amber gel on the other strobe with a 10 degree grid which would be aimed at the subjects head.
Lighting setup-
Test shot of myself-
Then Lina came out and we went to work.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f6.3, 1/250th
Toned down the power on the blue gelled backlight to make the color more purpleish.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f6.3, 1/250th
The shots were looking a little too gimmicky (like when a student photographer picks up gels for the first time) so I took the colors out of the equation. I also shut off the back light which left only the gridded light on her face.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f2.8, 1/250th
Then I added a bit more light and shot with the ring flash
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f7.1, 1/250th
I then brightened the lights quite a bit to do some more blown out type shots.
Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 100iso, f6.3, 1/250th
Then I got on the bench to get closer and shoot down on her a bit.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f5, 1/250th
For one final outfit/pose we brought the bench into the shot for her to sit/lay on.
Heres a wide version showing the setup.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 100iso, f6.3, 1/250th
Here is how the final shot of the night looked.
Nikon D3, 85mm, 100iso, f5.6, 1/250th
That was it for the shoot. In closing I was very happy with how the images came out. While I still have a long way to go before I start getting gigs to shoot portraits I am at least getting slightly more comfortable with the whole lighting thing.
-Mark J. Rebilas is a freelance sports photographer based in Arizona. His work is seen regularly in Sports Illustrated, ESPN The Magazine, USA Today and many others around the country. Visit www.markjrebilas.com to learn more about his work.
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