Cool names, eh? I bribed my friends to come over and give me some more studio experience. They relaxed considerably after bribing them with some beer What do you think? I could really use constructive criticism.
I must add that I really enjoy photographing "regular" people. I don't have the money/wherewithall to hire or TFP a model (although I guess I could, since I'm in the LA area), but I get immense satisfaction from taking picture of regular people and producing something that makes them feel good about themselves ... do any of you find the same? I had a lot of fun on this shoot
Remember -- comments and suggestions! Please! I want to get better
I've had the same experience that seanmcfoto cites - whereas I'd shoot at a full stop over the reading without hesitation when shooting film, working in digital I've started staying closer to 1/2-stop over when I want that high-key and hot look, then pushing maybe another +0.3 EV in Photoshop or Capture One where I can closely watch the effect of what I'm doing.
#1's my favorite, I think - you've got a great angle for your subject and a good pose, just pulling back the exposure a tiny bit would round it out perfectly.
In my (admittedly limited experience), you shouldn't actually blow out an image using exposure. Doing that is trading for effect against dynamic range (and ultimately on digital with quantized brightness steps--color gradations). What this means is that you should shoot your images with whatever exposure captures the dynamic range of the image (e.g., for film you can expect +/- 2 stops). In the studio your job is to setup the lighting to ensure the tones fit with-in the dynamic range and then set your exposure for the mid-tone. To make sure you are doing this right, use your camera's on-board histogram feature as you work.
So how do you get high-key images while doing this? Well if your original histogram was a gaussian distribution around midtone (i.e., normal), you could use the gamma controls in photoshop to keyup the image. Do not use the brightness / exposure controls directly. The secret to good high-key images is to retain some darks (it's just that they are sparse), so you absolutely must not shift those dark shades to become lighter.
Alternatively (and this is the more purist approach), you want to do everything with actual lighting. When doing this, what I said before still holds, the lighting must give the subject tones across the full dynamic range--but you may saturate those areas of the picture that you intend to wash out. The goal in this arrangement is to shift the histogram distribution of the original picture while keeping the highlights in range. When doing this you very much want to not be using your camera's evaluative metering--under which the camera will adjust the exposure to center the histogram at mid-tone, instead use the spot metering.
Consider using a hand-held spot-meter to help you check your lighting--the advantage of such a tool is that you can meter relatively smaller areas individually. And remember, the histogram feature on-board your camera is your friend. Use it verify what you're doing and to experimentally get a feel for the dynamic range of your camera.
What do you think? I could really use constructive criticism.
