Getting creative with the lighting.
“Slice” ft Rue Moriah
I love to experiment with lighting during my model shoots and I’d wanted to try this technique out that I’d seen used by the master Joel Grimes for a while.
It’s a relatively simple lighting setup but hopefully you’ll agree that the results are quite striking.
The first step is to get the backlight right. In this case the background is a large octabox placed directly behind the subject’s head. You have to bring the power up just enough but not too much as to blow out the highlights. A good way to check this is to enable the highlight alert on your camera (the blinkies) or if shooting tethered it’s easy to check the highlight clipping on the histogram in Lightroom. Simple trial and error will get you to the right place in just a couple of shots. I particularly like the way light wraps around the subject’s face as a result of this.
Nest step is to establish the main light. For this I’ve used a Canon speedlight inside a Rogue grid to create a tight beam of light. To make it even tighter I fashioned a slit over the front of the grid using two pieces of cardboard and some tape (I wanted that beam of light to be really tight)! I boomed this light directly in front and aimed down at Rue’s face and adjusted it until we got it right.
The black and white edit was intentional to really emphasise the contrast.
I hope you like the image.
Joel’s video on the subject is most definitely worth a watch and can be viewed here
Model//Rue Moriah
Getting down to business.
I’ve been very busy with the camera this past few weeks working on various new projects. Shooting corporate headshots and professional portraits I find both extremely enjoyable and very rewarding. Meeting so many new and interesting people along the way is an added bonus for sure.
More on this particular session later but for now I’ll leave you with this image of Stephen that I shot on location in Coventry at his place of work recently.
Republica is available to shoot headshots, corporate portraits and profile pictures. I think you’ll all agree that everyone should look their best in the business world. I’d like to think that I can help you to achieve that objective.
Please do get in touch to arrange your headshot/portrait session.
Salvador
Looking back at an old shoot in this post and featuring model Paige Antonia in homage to an image that I used to have on my wall as a student in London (many) years ago!
Pretty cool eh?!
I get my inspiration and ideas from many different sources and to try to make sense of them all I tend to pin them to numerous Pinterest boards which I delve into on a daily basis. It’s either that or keep hundreds of notes and tear sheets all over the place, so with that in mind I can whole heartedly recommend Pinterest for shoot planning.
We shot these images against a grey paper background in a small space at my house. Lit with a 120cm octabox with the grid on and placed to the side of Paige on her right shoulder at almost 90 degrees in the cross light position.
Now obviously we didn’t have Salvador Dali to work with to complete the look but we certainly put our own stamp on it and gave it a hundred percent. Paige is knocking the ball out of the park with this great bit of character acting.
If you were wondering about Paige well she’s a lot of fun to work with and she’s not (quite) as menacing in reality as she might seem in these pictures!
I hope you like this little insight into my shoot process/creative vision………and as always please feel free to connect with me on social media.
Happy New Year
Here’s to a happy and prosperous year ahead to all in 2019.
I’m glad to put the last year behind me if I’m honest after spending most of it recovering from a badly broken knee. You might imagine what an absolute nightmare that was. I’m firing on all cylinders now though and looking forward to my first shoots of the year. January is looking busy with two fantastic model shoots lined up and also some corporate headshots to complete before the month is out. Exciting times.
Anyways as always here’s a few images. In fact these are older images from 2017 which I have given a new look thanks to some fantastic Colour Look Up Tables (LUTS) which I recently purchased from the legend that is Glyn Dewis in his Creativity Pack 3. I do the vast majority of my colouring in Photoshop using these LUTS (with my colourblindness in mind I find them incredibly useful and effective).
The pack if you are interested in checking it out is available here
So these images with the fabulous model Rue Moriah were shot to a military fashion kind of theme and I have reworked them with a vintage styled colouring.
I hope you like them.
Model//Rue Moriah
Madison
I recently photographed Madison for her acting portfolio. We shot a variety of outfits and also did a few headshots for good measure.
Madison is a member of PQA (Pauline Quirke Academy) and has recently completed a term in London at West End Kids.
She played a Lost Girl alongside Bradley Walsh and Martin Kemp last year in Peter Pan at The Arena Birmingham and hopefully there are big things to come for her in her acting adventure. I have to admit to a little bias though………as Madison is my niece.
This is a retouched (lightly) headshot which I absolutely love. Lit with my trusty Godox AD360 in a 22″ Beauty Dish with the sock on, boomed directly in front and overhead Maddy angled down at 45 degrees. There is a white piece of foam core like you can get from Hobbycraft or any similar craft store held just below for fill. I love to use foam core as a fill card, it’s so cheap and so effective. One other point to note here is that this was shot with the Canon 17-40 L at 40mm. I know most of you might say the wide lens is not a good choice for portraits but I like to use it for beauty headshots. It enables me to get right underneath the beauty dish which is (by the way) positioned very close to the model. My rule of thumb is to take the diameter of the dish and position it at that distance from the subject. In this case a 22 inch dish at 22 inches away. I move it up and down on the boom arm to adjust the shadows under the nose, lip and chin to my taste.
Here’s to Maddy and wishing her all the very best in her acting career.
Kandi K
Just a quick post today to share an image from a recent set with Kandi K, a fabulous model who contacted me via my Instagram page.
I lit this with my trusty Godox AD360 boomed overhead in a 120cm octabox. I used my Canon 6D with the Sigma 70-200 2.8 lens. I generally tend to shoot with this setup. Hopefully you like the results.
Backdrop by Kate Backdrops (an absolute bargain)
Salvo ft Rue Moriah
Couple of new edits to share today featuring the fantastic Rue.
I’ve been experimenting with a few new black and white editing techniques recently after discovering some new black and white profiles in Adobe Camera Raw. If you have a subscription to Photoshop CC then by all means check them out. They are found by clicking the four little square boxes on the main menu interface next to the profile tab. Aside from being great stand alone looks I also use them at low opacity to desaturate my colour images.
I don’t tend to go for black and white in my editing as a rule of thumb even though I am extremely and I mean extremely colourblind! I may well be editing a few more in this style as I’m really loving the look it’s giving me.
The set “Salvo” was previously published in the December 2017 edition of the fantastic FemmeRebelle Magazine.
The dress is by All Saints London (belonging to my wife), the gloves are an eBay bargain and the hat I picked up from a friend of mine who is a military collectables dealer in Tamworth. I love to style my models whenever possible and I have always been fond of the military fashion look.
One final word on the lighting. I’m sure some of you will recognise it as the three edge light setup as championed by the one and only Joel Grimes.
Joel is a massive inspiration to me and truly a great educator in the field of photography and retouching. This was lit in his signature style using a soft box on either side behind the model to provide those edge highlights and with a main light in an octabox boomed over the top and directly in front of the model. In case you were wondering the smoke was also added in post in Photoshop CC.
I hope you like the images.
