Beyond the Basics

LESSON 4: BEYOND THE BASICS GLAMOUR LIGHT Fashion photography is one of the hottest photo markets out there for photographers and they all gamble their reputation on their own unique quality lighting style. Here we are going to cover a couple techniques and you can experiment to define your own style. Since women are the primary subject of beauty lighting, the techniques always show the skin tones as flawless. This is done with fairly flat lighting and makeup. Some photographers use contrasty light while others choose softer techniques. You can still use traditional lighting patterns, but will need to keep your lighting ratio at 2:1 or less like 1.5:1. There are many approaches to lighting modifiers such as a soft white 22” (or other sizes) reflector right above camera (left) as key and another modifier light reflector right under the camera as fill. The image on the right was done using two small light boxes, one above the camera and one below. The bottom light box was -1/2 stop lower in power than the box above the camera and this provides a soft light quality with faint shadows. You can do this approach with umbrellas as well and the ‘shoot through’ type works best. Shoot through is where the black backing on the umbrellas, if there is one, is taken off and you shine the light through the umbrella at your subject. Some will use this soft light over the camera and use a silver reflector right below the camera to bounce the key light into the underside of the shadows created by the key light. You can see the silver reflector at the bottom of this picture on the left. Another popular approach is to use a silver or silver/white umbrella right above camera and the shiny silver board as a bounce fill-card right under her face and out of camera view. The image right shows this technique in action with umbrella above and reflector below and the processed in a high key manor. This diagrams illustrates the over/under lighting approach. You can have two light boxes, one lightbox and reflector, a beauty dish (22”) and reflector or umbrellas. Here is another approach to glamour lighting and it uses two small strip lights, one on each side of the camera. You can see this in the two catch lights in her eyes. A reflector was used below here as well. This might be my favorite approach. Here there is a huge 7’ Photoflex Octa Dome right above the camera and the silver reflector under the camera. As you can see it creates a soft light quality. Here is the Octa Dome. On the right is another excellent example of Glamour Lighting. A former student of mine, LeeAnne Martin, used two eclipse umbrellas on camera right, one below and the other above the subject and set at a power setting to achieve f/8.5 and render a combined F11 reading (@125th). She then placed a rectangular reflector under the model in front of the camera and a bit above the height of her waist. She then also gelled the background light blue onto a medium grey muslin backdrop. She also had the model move a bit forward to capture the highlights in her eyes. And one last point, LeeAnne used a professional makeup artist and that makes a big difference. (Photo is Copyright LeeAnne Martin) What is really nice about this image by LeeAnne is that the light is off to the side rather than frontal and flatter. The cheek has a nice soft subtle shadows side to it. Finally, this portrait of Czech super model Lenka, shot in Dubai, uses two small light boxes, one above and one below the camera, but here they are off to the side about 5:00 rather than above the camera and that creates the soft shadow on her right cheek. As a photographer, you will photograph many subjects for the joy of doing photography. If you are a nature photographer, you wander is search of the perfect picture. As a portrait photographer you may also wander in search of the perfect portrait, but in a different way. If you are like me, you constantly observe, look at other photographs, and watch TV, all in an effort to find stimulation for ideas that would make great photographs. I have seen photographs that motivated me 20 years ago and they still are in my photo memory bank. I remembered a photo taken by one of my fellow classmates while I was in photography school of this cute 15 year old teenage girl in Santa Barbara. The cute teenager later became known as super model Kathy Ireland. I have always remembered the photo and just recently decided to do my own version, similar in subject, different in technique. I chose to use my favorite model, my wife. I laid out white seamless on the floor and had her lay on her back. I spread he hair out and swirled it around, then cut flowers and laid them in the hair. This image represents the setup. Her head would be right in the center of the picture with her feet under the ladder. I used a light with 10 degree grid and it is the light you see on the left. Above the grid is an extra large light box. This acts like a fill and it is set at -1/2 from the grid. The idea is that the grid lights her face in the center and that the light would gradate down her cheeks with the light centered in her eyes, nose, and mouth area. The light box also acts like a fill light and comes from the same direction as the grid. As you look at both pictures, you will see a piece of foam core clamped to the bottom of the ladder. There was also one on the other side while she laid there. Both of these were black on the inside and the idea is called ‘negative fill’. The opposite of bouncing light in with white, rather it sucks light away. This helps keep the light gradating from the center of the face to the cheeks and increases that ratio. Also notice that inside the ladder is a shiny poster board clamped and this acted like a shiny board that is used under the models chin for glamour techniques. I then climbed the ladder so I could be centered over her face and this is the photo straight out of the camera. I took the image into PS and began cleaning of the face and wrinkles, added eye shadow and cheek color, brightened the lips, colored the eyes. I also used curves to whiten the paper underneath and that helped remove the paper wrinkles. ( And last, I used a Diffusion Glow to increase contrast and creating the glowing feel. The fun part about shooting this type of image is that I am not done. I can take the original file and go back into PS and try a completely different technique, and I plan to do just that. HIGH KEY The term High Key addresses the technique of creating photographs that are all light in tone or in other words, a very short tonal range. Key is the term describing tonal value. Low key is darker in tone. High Key is often very flat in lighting to avoid shadows, which are dark and thus lower in key. To achieve a high key look you need to consider the tones of your subject and your background. A portrait of a woman wearing white against a white background and soft lighting would make a nice high key portrait. This portrait of a ballet dancer is an excellent example of high key and motion. I used a white seamless background and she wore a very light toned outfit. I used two large soft umbrellas, one above the other, on camera right about, 4:00 o’clock and another large umbrella above camera for fill. The fill was set at -1/2 below the key light. I then accentuated the effect in Photoshop by making the background pure white. LOW KEY Low key is just the opposite of high key; the tones are all darker, made up of medium to dark grey values and some black. This light can be higher in contrast or also low in contrast using darker tones. Here is an example of a low key portrait that I shot for a non-profit book project on notable women in the Pacific NW which included writers, politicians, artists, dancers, etc. The first step was to create the background and I began by painting the wall medium grey. Next, I used a sponge and dabbed it in white paint and “splotched” it all over the wall followed by doing the same thing with black paint. When out of focus this creates a pretty cool texture. I then threw a canvas on the floor to cover it. For lighting I used an extra large light box on camera right and a grid was hitting her face. The idea was that the grid is the key light and the lightbox is also a key light but weaker so it acts like a key light that is filling in. The technique is to get a bright face and have the light gradate down her body and get weaker as it goes. I also used a cutter card. A cutter card is a black piece of foam core (or something else) that is either huge or small.

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