drolo61 said:
Any chance to start out with available light and maybe a fill flash for the eyes?
Well, I wanted to experiment with flash
... plus available light is, well, available or not, and I want to learn to take shots even if the natural lighting is not ok.
drolo61 said:
Better to get the main light further off the camera to give good modeling, soften it up a bit as well. And move the rear light higher and more spread across the entire back of the subject to give more separation. The way you've shot it comes across far too flat...lacking contrast across the entire frame. The skintones are too close to the background tone.
For that, I'd rather have another background "hair flash" for separation?
pdirestajr said:
The lighting is really harsh and unnatural looking. You said you had the light in an umbrella- was it really far from your subject? A poster above said to move it further away from your subject, that is actually wrong. You want it as close as possible to your subject.
That I know (for once
). The problem here is that I've only got a "standard" sized flip umbrella, and I already move it as close to the subject as comfort allows. I was using it in shoot through position. I remember studios using much larger umbrellas.
Is it better to use the umbrellas in shoot-against mode to get softer light?
pdirestajr said:
The crop is also odd in that it looks like there is a wax hand stuck to this guy's chin! I'd hold off on trying to add hands into the frame till you nail the other aspects.
Right, you only know these things after postprocessing and getting experience :-} ... if you set up the lights in different places every time, it's rather difficult to get it 100% right.
pdirestajr said:
On the good side, your subject looks totally comfortable being photographed by you, and that is 90% of the challenge.
Photographing mostly animals and people together, this is indeed what matters most to me - make the subject feel natural, worry only about the technical aspects as much as time allows.
drolo61 said:
If you need to use flashes, the one left of your subject needs less energy
BLFPhoto said:
For my taste, the main light is too direct and too harsh. The side light is too much.
Actually I need a power pack on the flash, the problem was that the softbox flash kept recycling too slow, so I accidentally gave too much power to it which resulted in some over-flashed shots :-\
The general idea about the harsher light was to make him look more serious to counter his "mr. nice guy image", if you know him he's always very cheerful and smiling which I already have on an older portrait of him (attached below).
drolo61 said:
Personally I would rather take a little lower perspective not "to look down" on my subject.
Ok, this was on purpose, saw that style in a hollywood portrait shot once. Attached below is another one from the same day with a different model in a more standard position.