An Awesome Mask! :D June 11, 2009
Posted by Leonard Low in Assignment, Contains Images, Portraiture, Post-Production, Studio.Tags: composite, hair, mask, masking, portrait, serene
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Last night I completed the penultimate (second-last!) image in my “Earth Hour” set. This background is rather more serene and less dramatic than the previous images, but I decided on a gentle, pink-toned backdrop to complement the subject’s pretty pink outfit.
The big breakthrough with this image was that I’ve finally mastered hair masking after having serious issues with hair masking in the first images of this series (which I may go back and redo now that I have the technique mastered 
). If you zoom in on the hair in this image, you’ll see that every strand has been flawlessly masked onto the new background using the tutorial I previously linked to. 
Exposure Data
Exposure: 1/125 sec.
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50 mm (Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens)
ISO Speed: 400
Lighting: Flat light/beauty portrait setup. Tungsten studio light on left diffused through large diffusion panel for full-length diffuse light. Tungsten studio light through tall, rectangular softbox high on right for full-length light from right, but mostly illuminating face.
Tired but Happy. :) May 22, 2009
Posted by Leonard Low in Assignment, Contains Images, Portraiture, Studio, Studio Lights.Tags: beauty, drama, dramatic, hair, make-up, models, portrait, portraits, Portraiture, stylists, thank you, thanks, yaay
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Months of learning, weeks of planning, and days of preparation came together last night in a portrait photo shoot that (successfully!) yielded both my assignment photos, and a large stack of portfolio/professional-quality images. Some stats:
- 8 models (6 girls, 2 guys)
- 1 hour to set up
- 2.5 hours to shoot
- 2 separate sets:
- a high-key set with two diffuse modelling lights, primarily geared for “beauty” shots; and
- a low-key studio flash key light/back light set, primarily geared for “dramatic” photos.
- Hair by Sheryn from Hair in the City; Make-up by Kim Balaga.
- Took over 500 photos, in 22 megapixel RAW and low-res JPEG.
- That’s over 18GB of image files.
Un-Photoshopped image taken on the “dramatic” set.
I’d like to recommend my hair and make-up professionals to anyone looking for awesome stylists. They were promptly on time, treated my models (who are my friends, so this was important!) well by all accounts, and did a fantastic job. Thank you, Sheryn and Kim!
Un-Photoshopped image taken on the “beauty” set.
And thank-you to my models -my friends-, who volunteered for this to help me with my assignment and were awesome sports, even when I ran out of time (and memory cards! 
) towards the end of the shoot and couldn’t photograph them in as many outfits as I would have liked.
Next step is to comb through the images, cropping, processing, and editing! To achieve the results I’d like for my assignment, I’ll need to photo-composite a few of my best studio shots onto various backgrounds. I did one for fun in about 10 minutes this morning.
So the work’s not finished yet – but at least this next stage should be a lot less pressure, and quite a bit of fun.
Finally, extra thanks to Red and Judy for easing my post-shoot nerves with a couple of first-class scotches. You guys always seem to know just how to make everything better.
Preparing: Professional Portrait Shoot May 19, 2009
Posted by Leonard Low in Assignment, Contains Images, General Comments, Portraiture, Studio.Tags: artist, hair, make-up, model, models, portrait, portraits, Studio, stylist
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Oh my god. I seriously hope I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew here.
I’m preparing to do a really big portrait shoot, in which I’m hoping to achieve a few things:
Take my “final” photos for my major assignment for PHOT122. This will involve getting my models to hold unlit light bulbs in various poses, though some of the bulbs will be made to APPEAR lit, by using a strong, focussed, on-axis light.- Take portrait shots which will be “portfolio pieces” of my own work – a visual summary of my learning in this course. Whether or not I decide to start doing professional work, I think it’s valuable to create some beautiful images that show my ability at this point in time. I will be giving copies of these photos to my models (who are mostly my friends who’ve volunteered for this!) and to my make-up artist, in return for very generous student pricing on their professional services.
Yes that’s right. I’m getting a professional make-up artist and a seperate hair stylist to work on this shoot with me. It will be as close as I can manage to a professional portrait photo-shoot. Somehow, I will be trying to coordinate eight models, two stylists, and various interested spectators, while trying to stay focussed on taking the best portraits I’ve ever taken.
Keep your fingers crossed for me!
Studio: Portraiture May 7, 2009
Posted by Leonard Low in Contains Images, Portraiture, Strobist, Studio, Studio Lights, Workshop.Tags: back, backlight, hair, hairlight, light, portrait, Portraiture, reflector, snoot, strobism, Studio
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Today was our last day of “classes” – we had our last theory test today, and from now on, we’ll be shooting in the studio. We kicked things off with a “free” studio session tonight after our test, and I set up for portraiture. After a few pretty ordinary shots, my group started getting more creative with lighting.
These were done by backlighting with a strong snoot, then reflecting the light back onto the subjects (and the white background behind them) using a flexible gold reflector with an irregular plastic surface – like a gold plastic sheet taped over a piece of cardboard. In the left image, the reflector was curved to focus the reflected light onto the subject; the light was kept more diffuse for the image on the right. The wide aperture served to blur the reflected light in the background rather nicely.
