Quake3World

Yeah, old faithful lol

Oh, also, don't rely too much on the catchlight. That could've just been a fill light or over-exposed bounce.

Shadows and highlights never lie.

Also, just as I wrote that, I realised I didn't shoot this with a beauty dish at all. I used a ring flash.

My bad. It's quite blatant now that I look at it.

I just saw the rounded shape of the catchlight and figured it was something round. What ring flash do you use?

Alienbees dude, alienbees everything. I'm too cheap for anything expensive. Profoto one day if I ever quadruple and then double my salary.

Thought you might like to see the original images before I retouched:



That's of the girl I posted on the page before.

Ordinarily I'd have created the light beforehand, but this happened to be a shot that I was taking as I set the shoot up. Just a single lightsource. Image was never intended to go into any of the final shots, but it made a fun retouch experiment.

Yeahso wrote:Alienbees dude, alienbees everything. I'm too cheap for anything expensive. Profoto one day if I ever quadruple and then double my salary.

I have 2 AB800s - and they work great. I also have a bunch of old Nikon speedlights - SB-25s, 24s, 28s, etc, for more portable off camera lighting. I wish Canon's speedlight system was as good as Nikons. That is one thing
that McNally and Hobby both mentioned - they said they could get by with bodies from either Canon or Nikon, but that Nikon really had an edge with the current generation of flashes.

Also, could you post the pre-edit version of the guy with the headphones? That's the one I am really curious about seeing beforehand.

Did you develop your processing workflow just from experimenting on your own or did you emulate anyone else?

My workflow is pretty organic, I don't know a thing about anyone else's retouching techniques, it's all just stuff I've developed by playing around.

Here are some random shots - don't do studio portraiture, wish I had more opportunities for it.

Shot from an 80s night concert done put on by a local band.


Hockey Player:





Nephew



Nephew, again, on his way to becoming an alcoholic redneck



Nephew, again, being launched into the air.



A shot from one of the very, very few model shoots I do. Not my favorite style of photography - I realize some people love the 'play with your hair, look serious, look pouty, smile, flip your hair around, etc. while I fire off a ton of pictures'
method of fashion photography, but I'd rather take a portrait that I put thought into.

tnf wrote:Hockey Player:

Was his cage open?

I think so. I just told him to put his helmet on for the shot. I wish the bar wasn't blocking one of his eyes here.

You can tell from how far the J-clips are from the cage. If his cage was closed, his eyes would've lined up perfectly with the bars. Still a good shot though.

Love the footballer one tnf, good shit.

I'm going to be doing a shoot with a few football players this spring and was testing out some lighting setups
that would give them the "I'm a badass because I play football" look they want in their shots. I go shirtless in the next series...stay tuned.

Booked another wedding today - have wanted to shoot a barn wedding for awhile, finally getting the chance this August.

Yeahso - you mentioned not liking wedding photography, and I can understand why in terms of how they can be creatively stifling with
so many women wanting the same thing, but in regards to weddings, have you seen much of Jeff Ascough's work?
I think he's my favorite wedding photographer - with all of the perfectly exposed, noiseless shots out there - this guy uses nothing but
natural light, cranks up that ISO (using two Mark IV's now) and creates amazing stuff.

http://www.jeffascough.com/

tnf wrote:Booked another wedding today - have wanted to shoot a barn wedding for awhile, finally getting the chance this August.

Yeahso - you mentioned not liking wedding photography, and I can understand why in terms of how they can be creatively stifling with
so many women wanting the same thing, but in regards to weddings, have you seen much of Jeff Ascough's work?
I think he's my favorite wedding photographer - with all of the perfectly exposed, noiseless shots out there - this guy uses nothing but
natural light, cranks up that ISO (using two Mark IV's now) and creates amazing stuff.

http://www.jeffascough.com/

To see a guy with no flash just running around snapping candid pics - it gets frustrating to see guys who make it look so easy and end up with stuff that looks like Ascough's work.

tnf wrote: http://www.jeffascough.com/

A very cool link

This guy is good!

tnf wrote:Booked another wedding today - have wanted to shoot a barn wedding for awhile, finally getting the chance this August.

Yeahso - you mentioned not liking wedding photography, and I can understand why in terms of how they can be creatively stifling with
so many women wanting the same thing, but in regards to weddings, have you seen much of Jeff Ascough's work?
I think he's my favorite wedding photographer - with all of the perfectly exposed, noiseless shots out there - this guy uses nothing but
natural light, cranks up that ISO (using two Mark IV's now) and creates amazing stuff.

http://www.jeffascough.com/

LOL ... that's how I shot my cousin's wedding, as just a face in the crowd with entry level equipment not because it was my choice but because it's all I had. They liked my pictures more than the ones from the hired photographer. winning

I've been trying to achieve a look somewhat similar to what you did with that DJ picture for years sys0p and still can't quite get it.

Here's an example of an out of the camera shot and edited version.

The lighting is really flat.

Yea, it was a rather boring shot and that is actually kind of what she was looking for. She wanted a few pictures for a portfolio for the acting and she said the people looking at them prefer nothing too dramatic because they want to see what they will be working with on screen (this is all small-time stuff though - I really don't know, I'm far from an expert in doing publicity shots for actors/actresses/etc...it seems to me that they'd prefer something more interesting.) I want to do some headshots that have a lot more dimensionality to them using multiple lights and modifiers that create some more interesting shadows. This was just a shot with a giant 60 inch umbrella that pretty much just throws soft even light over everything - there are a lot of people around here who are getting a lot of business by doing nothing but that. They have a studio with a light setup that never moves, they drop people into place in front of a huge roll of gray or white seamless paper, and start blasting shots with the same lighting. It looks decent and the average customer is very happy with the fact that everyone is exposed well. They go on to do a little photoshopping and its all done. I really don't want to be that photographer.

Alot of people go for that look because of the softer features. The actress in your retouched shot has less...uhm...noticable creases around the mouth and cheeks and it nearly got rid of her eye bags.

Conversely, your self-portrait has really good lighting...mainly because of your lumberjack manly man looks and scrotum full of win.

tnf wrote:I've been trying to achieve a look somewhat similar to what you did with that DJ picture for years sys0p and still can't quite get it.

Here's an example of an out of the camera shot and edited version.

I don't quite get what you're saying. Is the first sentence linked to the picture, or just a general comment?

If you want the look of the DJ shot, you need a ring flash and then to process it the way I do.

As for the image, you need to light and process in a way that either flatters the model, or deliberately draws out her flaws.

She's got a very pointy chin, so she needs a reflector or something to fill in the shadow under her chin. Her eyes are kind of close together, but she has a wide face. Either an illusion created by the eyes, or just a wide face. In either case, less direct light to bath part of her face in a shadow would thin her.

Like GKY said, the lighting is quite flat. In which case, she would benefit from some dodging and burning to give her features a bit of depth. Also, when you increase contrast to such a high level, you should be sure to reduce saturation slightly, as you've lost detail in the top, and the jeans are now an unnaturally deep blue.

I'd have also put her hair behind her back, maybe. Depending on how wide her neck was.

All of this is just hindsight though, plenty of the things I mentioned I would probably have missed if I'd have only had limited time with her.

Nice shot though, well posed and nicely processed.