Apologies for the long post, but I need some advice and
My wife's work asked me recently whether I was interested in doing some informal corporate headshots for their company. , this happened as a result of one of the managers seeing the various pictures I have taken of my daughters on my wife's work desk.
I am/was quite daunted by the thought of doing so, but they have been cool about it - no pressure at all from them, no expectation that the result will be fully professional, will work around my schedule etc. They offered to purchase any gear that I might need for the shoot and to pay me for the project. So, after mulling over it for a week or so, I decided why the heck not and said I would do it. I am doing it mainly for the experience - managing and interacting with people/strangers while photographing them to get them relaxed and looking as good as possible, basic flash photography, posing, etc. I have outlined a really low hourly rate for my time, which I will only charge them if I am satisfied with the results I can provide.
Most of my photography is natural light portraits of my two girls and all the kids of our friends - so basically look/wait for some nice light, find a decent background and wait for them to get in front of it. I have never setup a photoshoot with adults coming deliberately to have their pictures taken.
I have had a 580EX + ST-E2 for a while, but rarely use it for anything other than a little bit of fill. So I decided to invest in an umbrella and light stand for the job and have been madly reading various articles on the net about basic 1-strobe lighting techniques.
Equipment I used: 1D Mk1, Canon 85/1.4, ST-E2, 580EX, lightstand and Westcott 43" white umbrella.
OK, so enough background. I went to their offices today and spent an hour or so setting up and shooting some test pics. I will be shooting out the front of their offices with an off-white column as the background. The whole area is nice, open shade with glass windows a couple of feet to the left of the column (which do the job of a reflector).
So my intention was to mainly shoot natural, ambient light, with the sun acting as the keylight from camera right and a touch of flash (580EX through a white umbrella) for catchlights. The flash was camera left, just far enough off the camera access for it to be out of frame, about 4-5 feet from the subject and a foot above the eyeline and angled down slightly. N.B. I originally tried to place the flash on camera right, where you would normally place the key light, but I couldn't get the flash to fire using the ST-E2 (couldn't point the umbrella where I wanted it at the same time as pointing the rear of the flash to me).
So I am hoping you might all be able to help me out here:
* how does the photo look to you? (mainly focusing on the lighting)
* what could I do to improve it?
* any suggestions on why I don't have any catchlights from the flash?
* I converted the image from AdobeRGB to sRGB to display it here on the forum, but the skintones are much more orange than they appear in Photoshop. Can anyone tell me why?
Apologies again for such a long post, but thank you for any input given.
That is a real good headshot. I'm sure your wife's employer will be pleased if they all turn out like that. I'm a little concerned about your countintg on natural light. What will you do if it rains on the day of the shoot? Also, It is better to shoot where you have some privacy because other employees may tease your subj. and embarrass them.
Shooting with window light requires first aligning the face to the light, then moving the camera position to capture the desired facial angle. You've done both very well, but all faces are different and what worked with that one may not work as well with others. So here are some general tips, most of which you may already know consciously or do subconsciously.
In your shot above the face is aligned to the light well, but could perhaps be turned to the left a bit more. As you turn a face back and forth into the light watch how the shadow border touches the edge of the eye socket and traces the contour of the cheekbone. When the light starts to slip past the corner of the eye the definition of the cheekbone begins to be lost and highlights start to pop-up on raised areas within the shadows side of the face, such one to the right of her mouth above. If the face was turned just 1/2 inch to the left that bump would be hidden uniformly in the shadows. As for the shadows, they are modeling the face nicely with a nice natural front-to-back transition, but are noticeably cooler than the key light. Notice how the smile line on the right is the darkest shadow on the face? That's because the fill isn't reaching it because something (probably her nose) is shading it. That's why you need fill in front of the face. A large white foam core panel placed to the side near the camera would make a good reflector. You need to keep it as far forward of the face as possible to prevent overfilling the side of the head.
Once the face is posed to the light finding the most flattering angle is simply a matter of looking at them all and using your judgement. I will start full face and look for any asymmetry and whether the jaw and back of the head is wider than the eyes - what makes most faces look oval or round. Only people with naturally symmetrical and slim faces look good full face. For most one or the other of the oblique views is more flattering. Look at both and decide which is most flattering. Her angle is flattering, but if you look critically the size on the left defined by the lighting pattern winds up looking smaller than the brighter lit right side. The goal of a short-lit, oblique pattern is to ideally make both sides look the same width, creating the impression of symmetry. Moving your camera a bit more to the left would have captured a slightly more oblique view which would have been a bit more balanced and revealed the shape of her cheekbone more. There's no magic angle, you just need to look at various angles and pick the best. I can predict what might look better because I've been studying faces for awhile.
Your choice of the post for the background is a limiting factor for two reasons: 1) it forces you to pose everyone facing right, and 2) isn't the ideal choice for dark clothing. A set of light and dark portable background like a Lassolite Pop-up on a stand would allow you to change direction and shoot from where the subject is standing above with the subject facing the other direction to the light. Having the option to change orientation can help flatter a subject with a very unsymmetrical face. Portraits are more effective if the face contrasts strongly with the background. You can't control the clothing, but unless there is a requirement for a uniform background in all the shot it is possible to minimize the distraction of the clothing by matching the "key" of the background to it. Light clothing / light background, dark clothing / dark background.
Regarding the catchlights, the one you really want to see are those created by the window. They are visible, but not strongly defined. Moving closer to the window should make them brighter.
As for color balance, buy and use a gray card. It will give you a neutral frame of reference for white balance when editing. See http://super.nova.org/DPR/Technique/GrayCard.html For exposure a white terry towel is a handy reference. Adjust exposure until it just starts to black-out in the overexposure warning and then back off.
The shot above is an exposure test shot showing how I use the towel taken with a pair of 580ex flashes in wireless M mode at 1/2 power with a pair of 9 x 12 foam diffusers in front of a pop-up background. I'd previously set custom WB from a gray card. All things considered a pair of flashes used like than while not offering the same level of diffusion in the lighting, is a far simpler approach you might want to consider so weather and time of day, which affect natural light, don't dictate your shooting schedule. See http://super.nova.org/DPR/Canon/MultiCanon/
Thanks browncam, Chuck and rwhisner for your comments and advice. Really appreciate it.
browncam - Good tip about the privacy issue. Re: relying on natural light - I have actually visited my wife's work at all different times of the day over the last few months and, surprisingly, the quality of the natural light is really good most of the time. The sun is blocked by the office building for much of the day, which results in some nice, even, open shade out the front. Having said that, the company is being really flexible, so if it is raining or not a good day, they are happy for me to just reschedule. This is good, or should I say essential, for me because I would not be confident at this stage doing the project indoors with predominantly flash lighting.
chuck - your website, which I found online ages ago when I first got the 580EX, was one of the ones I was poring over in the last week. Thanks for taking the time to post such a detailed response with tips specific to my image. Really helps in my lighting education.
, this happened as a result of one of the managers seeing the various pictures I have taken of my daughters on my wife's work desk.
I have never setup a photoshoot with adults coming deliberately to have their pictures taken.