portraits of my brother

[adam75south]

here's some portraits i shot of my brother today. one light setup, no reflectors. 32x42 softbox.

btw, while editing these i found an awesome way to adjust white balance in lightroom with a neutral background(that is, if you don't trust the white balance eye dropper). after you adjust your exposure, crank up your vibrance to 100. at this point you will see any green or purple, adjust the tint slider until you get neither green nor purple, then you will see either orange or blue in the background so adjust the temp slider accordingly. then crank the vibrance back down. works like a charm. i imagine it can also work for any picture if you can find a neutral color.

as far as PP, all tone controls adjusted w/ lightroom..then opened with photoshop, i took away all blemishes or lines in the forehead. i did minor skin smoothing but kept it natural. then a minor smart sharpen. that's it. i left his scar(car accident when we were kids, the baby sitter didn't have our seat belts on) because he likes it and didn't want to lose it.

c&c more than welcome.

http://www.dallasriders.com/photography/eric/eric_portrait.jpg

as you can see in this one, he was VERY uncomfortable and had trouble loosening up. i didn't like this picture at all, but he did, so i'll go ahead and post it up since i did the touchup work on it.
http://www.dallasriders.com/photography/eric/eric_portrait_2.jpg

http://www.dallasriders.com/photography/eric/eric_portrait_3.jpg

http://www.dallasriders.com/photography/eric/eric_portrait_4.jpg

[Nickcanada]

Man you've come a long way with your lighting set up! Good call leaving his scar intact.

So when are you going to start charging people!?

[RichNY]

You did a really great job with that 3rd shot.

[forno]

You did a really great job with that 3rd shot.

Agreed, really talks to you:cool:

[cwphoto]

Excellent set Adam.

[coldrain]

Very nice portraits.. the lighting is very unintrusive.

[adam75south]

Man you've come a long way with your lighting set up! Good call leaving his scar intact.

So when are you going to start charging people!?

i don't know man. i guess when i get my portfolio built up enough. right now i just have people come over so i can shoot them for my portfolio, then i don't even try to sell them prints. guess i need to start the whole sale part of this photography thing huh?

and thanks again everyone for the great comments.

[cwphoto]

Just had another look, the lighting is great.

[sss809]

I love your portraits! This is what I want to be able to do, but so far it's not happening. Which lens did you use?

[te1221]

Any shots of your setup? :)

The light looks very even and the eyes are lit up very nicely.

[Nickcanada]

Seriously man, everyone is hounding on me for my cheep rates. Here you are putting out some seriously great stuff.

Time to start charging, me thinks.

[achuang]

These are fantastic photos Adam. Your skills have improved so much over the last few months. Seeing that you're becoming the resident studio portrait photographer along with Peter, you can help me out since Peter hasn't posted for a while.

I have a shoot this sunday with a friend of mine who is a taekwondo instructor and wants some shots of him in action for a website. It'll be mostly outside work with action but I thought maybe a good portrait would be good. I'm a nikon shooter with one SB600 flash and a D70s body which can control it off camera. And I've been experimenting this morning trying to copy your lighting. How do you get the right side of your brother's head in darkness yet there is still light on his cheek and eyes on that side. I could only manage to get the left side of my face lit up and the shadow starting from the nose all the way to the right side.

I might be able to borrow another SB600 from a friend, but you only used a one light setup and achieved such great results.

[adam75south]

te1221...i don't have any shots of my exact setup, but i can recreate it for you in the next couple of days.

nick.....thanks alot man, i really would like to start making some money pretty soon.

achuang....i appreciate the comments. as far as my setup...the way strobes work, you have what they call model lights. these are regular light bulbs that turn off for that split second that the strobes fire but stay on in between time. these lights show you where the shadows will fall and give you a good idea of what the picture will end up like. so i just moved the light around until it looked good on both eyes and the shadows were exactly where i wanted them. as far as the even lighting, i can't take much credit for that. i used a huge softbox 32"x40" and put it about 1-2 feet from his face....the closer the light is to the person, the less harsh the shadows will be on his face...plus, you just can't beat the look that a softbox will give you.

as far as what you have, i'm not sure what kind of options you have as far as modifiers for your flash, but i'm thinking you could probably rig up something somewhat nice with a thin white bed sheet and some card board lined with tin foil to get the same effect. the tin foil will amplify the light and send it to the bed sheet. like i said, you want the light very close to your subject to minimize the contrast of the shadows. and if you did decide to build your own softbox i would try and make it at least 18"x18" for head shots like this...the bigger the better though.

but if you wanted to buy one you could try something cheap like this on from ebay. i don't know how powerful your flash is but if you have the ability to manually adjust power, i might try it all the way up at full power. if you want, i can shoot my 580ex through a softbox just to see how decent it can turn out???
http://cgi.ebay.com/24-x24-Pro-Photo-Softbox-Soft-Boxes-Rings-NEW_W0QQitemZ220100738238QQihZ012QQcategoryZ79008Q QrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

here's a hotlinked picture from fotodiox.com of the actual softbox i used for those shot of my brother.
http://www.fotodiox.com/shop/images/light_controls_modifiers_3/softbox_light_box_12/32x40softbox_demo.jpg

[achuang]

Thanks for the setup suggestions Adam, I hadn't thought of a white bedsheet....that sounds like a good idea. The way I was trying to diffuse my flash was using one of those car reflectors that people put inside their windscreens on hot days to minimise heat. I have a silver one, and I got the idea from one of 24Peter's shoots when he used one of those. It definitely worked a lot better than direct off camera flash. I'll try see what i can do in terms of making a softbox. Since the shoot is tomorrow i don't think i have enough time. So shooting through a white bedsheet would work to diffuse the light?

Keep up the great work

[adam75south]

Thanks for the setup suggestions Adam, I hadn't thought of a white bedsheet....that sounds like a good idea. The way I was trying to diffuse my flash was using one of those car reflectors that people put inside their windscreens on hot days to minimise heat. I have a silver one, and I got the idea from one of 24Peter's shoots when he used one of those. It definitely worked a lot better than direct off camera flash. I'll try see what i can do in terms of making a softbox. Since the shoot is tomorrow i don't think i have enough time. So shooting through a white bedsheet would work to diffuse the light?

Keep up the great work

it would work if you have a way to direct the light to go in different directions...that's what the box part of it does w/ the reflective material. it evens it out. if you used just the bedsheet then i don't think it will stay even.

[achuang]

That makes sense to me now, so if i fire the flash backwards at the silver reflective material and then put a white bedsheet between the subject and the flash then it should work to soften the light. That's a great tip Adam, thanks for all the help. The shoot was supposed to be this morning, but the weather wasn't too good so it's postponed to another day. I'll try it out then.

[adam75south]

That makes sense to me now, so if i fire the flash backwards at the silver reflective material and then put a white bedsheet between the subject and the flash then it should work to soften the light. That's a great tip Adam, thanks for all the help. The shoot was supposed to be this morning, but the weather wasn't too good so it's postponed to another day. I'll try it out then.

if you just plan to do that then you might want to try it out on someone first just to see how it turns out. i can already see some dark dark shadows in your future so remember to try and get the whole setup as close to your subject as you can.

the great thing about softboxes is they will concentrate all the light AND even it out. what you are talking about will spread the light so you will probably have to use more power.

[achuang]

I don't usually do much portrait photography so I probably can't justify buying a softbox, although lately I have been doing more than usual. And I have been experimenting with off camera flash more lately and I'm liking it. We'll just see where my hobby takes me. Thanks for all the help and keep up the great portraits, helps me learn about lighting.

[24Peter]

These are fantastic photos Adam. Your skills have improved so much over the last few months. Seeing that you're becoming the resident studio portrait photographer along with Peter, you can help me out since Peter hasn't posted for a while.


Well first off, these are indeed great photos Adam! It's awesome to see how far you've come in such a short period of time. You are certainly worthy of being the portrait guru on this forum. :)

As for me, well I just shot two short film projects back to back. The whole video thing is very time consuming so I haven't had my still camera out in a couple of months. (I'm currently edting both projects.) One is a comedy pilot for an Internet TV series which we are entering into the Channel 101.com competition.(http://www.channel101.com/) Directing is still very much a passion for me and both video projects involve people I shot with my still camera. I'll post links when they're done.

I also picked up a new HDV video camera: the Canon HV20. http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=177&modelid=14869 For anyone looking for a mini-HD camera, this thing is great. It doesn't have the full manual controls of the bigger HDV cameras, but it shoots 24p and has awesome image quality. Just beware that the software to edit 24pHDV footage is still in flux.

Going to NY for a couple of weeks next month to see the family so I'm sure I'll take some still photos of my nieces, etc. And if I get some paid portait/headshot work before then I'll post some images.

Great job again Adam! ;)