#controlledlighting

Studio portrait / lighting

While I was working on my controlled lighting techniques I realised I had never posted the following, and as a lot of work went into producing this image with the help and patience of @jackedwards-nqgroupc @maxine-bedford and @stephencsblog , and although not using in my final selection, I thought it only fair to show the final image.

Back / Rim

Thanks @caitlinjardinenq1c for your help

Original image by Mike Glatzer

This image was taken by Don English in 1932.  Commissioned by Paramount to advertise the film Shanghai Express.  The image is of Marlene Dietrich

For this afternoon class we were given some portrait pictures by professional photographers and asked to try to emulate the picture.

For me this was difficult for a number of reasons.

1. Didn't have time to play with camera, in this case I was loaned a Canon 2000D.

2. I've never gotten the hang of 'people pictures'

3. I'm learning about light and shadow from scratch

The first image (David Eustace) proved challenging in that we were using natural light from a window and whatever reflector boards we could, still didn't get it quite right but ....

The second image (Kirsty Mackay) was challenging for a different reason, how on earth to create an image where the face is half in shadow. Bear in mind my lack of knowledge in this area. What did we do?

We found an empty studio used one of the studio lights to shine at an angle and down, put a reflector board partially in front to create a shadow, white reflector at the back and at the side to light up the other side of the face also on that side we had a portable round silver reflector which we also used for the same side of the face but angled from the ground to try to avoid to much shadow under the chin. Unfortunately, at this point I couldn't figure out how to change the quality of the light to stop it being too warm.

In the final image we returned to our class studio and was experimenting with light and shadow from which direction should the light come from and in which direction should the face be turned to form a shadow. It was at this point I discovered that if I changed the iso setting to auto I got the desired light quality 😊

My model throughout was Eryn, thank you very much for your patience 😊