Thank you Stan. Glad you like the colour scheme. Yeah, that blue nail polish. :-) The focus was headshots, but of course hands inevitably come into it and I hadn't noticed. Yet another take-away lesson. In many other shots she's wearing colourful clothing and the polish fits in (youthful, bright).
I have also rendered this as a b&w and the nail polish is moot there. I'll post one of those when I get to one I really like. On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 10:02 PM, Stan Halpin <[email protected]> wrote: > I like the (apparent?) color of the backdrop because of the way it matches > the color of the sweater. Which means the whole context, backdrop plus > sweater, pulls my eye to the face (which is lovely!) Or it would if it > weren't for the distraction of the wrinkles Larry pointed out. I have a white > sheet I've used as a backdrop for "product" shots for eBay sales. I hate > wrinkles. But I hate ironing even more. > > The bright nail polish also distracts a bit from her face. With such a lovely > well-lit subject, why let other elements draw attention away? > > Disclaimer: I don't know how to shoot studio portraits, but I have had > several passport and driver's license photos taken of me over the years. > > stan > > On Aug 19, 2013, at 9:33 PM, Larry Colen wrote: > >> On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 08:59:34PM -0400, Bruce Walker wrote: >>> A straight-forward "studio" portrait of my niece, Sophie. Shot on >>> location in my sister's living room (she's a champ to put up with me >>> rearranging the whole thing). >>> >>> http://flic.kr/p/fy42fh >>> >>> I was also testing my latest money-saving invention: $10 IKEA >>> background support system. Ingredients: One Hugad black curtain rod, >>> 210-385 cm; 2x Betydlig curtain rod brackets, top-slot filed out to >>> fit 1/4" stud on top of light stand; use with two cheap 8' light >>> stands. >> >> That sounds a lot like something I've done. >> >>> >>> K20D, DA* 50-135/2.8 @ 90mm/f:5, 1/160th, ISO 100; >>> Lr + Ps + Nik + Portraiture >>> >>> Paramount short lighting with reflector fill. AF540FGZ in Westcott >>> Medium Apollo above-left, key; AF540FGZ in 30" umbrella softbox, >>> boomed above behind-right, hair; 42" silver reflector, right. >>> >>> Comments welcome! >> >> The lighting is damn near perfect. >> >> There are a few things that I think you might have done differently, >> advice that is worth approximately what it's costing you. >> >> 1) The dark green shirt is too close in color to the grey background. >> I think that a red, or maroon sweater would have worked a lot better. >> Alternatively, maybe some rim lighting would have set it off. >> >> 2) I find the creases on the backdrop distracting. The ideal situation >> would involve a room two or three times the size of the one you had, >> where you could move the backdrop far enough away that it would have >> been either totally out of focus, unlit, or both. >> Alternatively, if there is any way you could have used gobos to keep >> most of the light off the backdrop and just hit it with a spot >> behind Sophie, to add contrast, then you'd only need a small unwrinkled >> area of background. That could have also set off the sweater. >> >> To prevent the distracting creases like those, I do one of two things. >> I will either store a backdrop rolled up on a 10' section of ABS >> so that it is smooth, and has no creases. Or I will store it wadded up >> in a bin, so that it is covered by random wrinkles, with no distracting >> patterns. >> >> Although, what I usually really do is just make sure that my lights >> are much closer to my model than the background, and ideally not even >> hitting the backgound, because if you can't see the backdrop, then you >> can't see the creases. >> >>> >>> -- >>> -bmw >>> >>> -- >>> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >>> [email protected] >>> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >>> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >>> follow the directions. >> >> -- >> Larry Colen [email protected] http://red4est.com/lrc >> >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- -bmw -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
