Hey everyone. No way am I a pro but I just wanted to share some of my experiences shooting formal photography and I hope everyone else can share from their own personal experiences about this niche of people photography. Hopefully this helps people who are suddenly thrown into this!
Anyways, here is an excerpt from my blog www.spencerfu.wordpress.com :
So I was recommended to take formal photos again for an event at my university from a friend on the Yearbook committee. This was only my second attempt at formal-style photography and I think it went pretty well. Some of my favourites photos are displayed below but here quickly is how I set everything up.
BACKDROP
When I arrived a backdrop had already been set up for me by the university, as you can see it is pretty tall covering the floor to the ceiling easily. However, it was only about 3 meters wide. Many people often think this is enough but you always have to remember that we want to keep the subject of the photo a good distance away from the backdrop to avoid heavy shadows behind the subject. The further away from the backdrop you place the subject the less wide your backdrop respectively becomes. This becomes an issue when taking photos of groups or when doing slightly crazier poses even with only two people.
Usually it is best if someone from the formal's decoration team comes to decorate the backdrop for you but you can easily make do by putting up a couple of sheets of fabric and sprucing it up with whatever decorations you can find lying around.
LIGHTING
Lighting was again with two off camera speed lights (Nikon SB-26 and SB-25). The key light was placed 8 or 9 feet off the ground slightly to camera left through a shoot through umbrella powered at 1/4 with some fabric covering the side of the umbrella that faced me and the camera to prevent lens flare. Another bare light at 1/32 was placed low on the ground firing off camera right onto the backdrop to create some separation between the subject and the background.
I think the most important part of lighting is to make sure you use a large soft light source (ie. umbrella) and to make sure that the light is placed in a position where everyone is lit effectively. Depending on the poses you may have to move the lights around so you have to always remember to check your histogram after each shot to make sure you don't blow any highlights.
CAMERA SETTINGS
The camera was metered at around ISO 200, 1/250s, and F4-5.6 depending on the group, position of the lights (which I had to move slightly depending on the scene), clothing/skin colour of the subjects. For people with paler white skin I find I will overexpose a lot easier so I went with F5.6. But for people with darker skin or black suits/dresses F4 was the way to go!
Again the hardest part about this type of photography is not the technical details but the people skills that come with posing and creating a comfortable environment for the subjects so that their emotion and feelings can come through in the photo. Obviously this is better than posing everyone generically and saying smile … CHEESE!!!!!
Putting the key light just a bit off axis isn't a very flattering strategy. As you can see in your second and third shots it just creates a slightly off center distracting nose shadows in the middle of the face. Better to keep it directly over the camera and casting the shadows straight down / back behind. A single flash on a bracket with a diffuser would produce more flattering lighting.
Dark shadows on a brightly highlighted face are distracting and not very flattering. For example in the last shot the expressions are great and you can see hers, but his eyes and half his face are in shadow. Better to keep the lighting simple, the shadows open by keeping fill equal to key or a stop or less below (2:1 to 3:1 ratio) so the lighting doesn't get in the way of seeing the expressions.
You are right Chuck! I had originally positioned my key light at a 45 degree angle to the subject but kept getting weird shadows depending on how they were posed. This became especially a bigger problem with shots with more than 2 people. I kept finding myself moving the umbrella closer and closer towards me and the middle of the scene/frame.
I guess I was still stuck in my normal "portrait" photography mode where I try to avoid plain flat lighting techniques. But I understand exactly what you mean.
