nextelbuddy wrote:
Lisa I know I have asked this question before as well. your work is amazing and I love all of your images. I truly get inspired looking at them but as a photographer the desire to understand the BTS of your images is always there.
I know you say most of your imagery is natural light yet almost all of your images have beautiful strong catch lights in the eyes and the skin tones and faces are always filled in as if you are using fill light such as reflectors or strobes.
Many catch lights and fill light looks can be achieved with natural environmental reflectors such as walls or buildings etc but many of your pictures are outdoors in large open areas where there doesn't appear to be any walls or buildings so the only thing left is photoshop?
are you adding in catch lights and filling in skin tones with photoshop post processing? (none of which is wrong so no jab here) just another photographer trying to understand how you use and take advantage of light in your imagery.
Thank you for your kind words! To answer your questions, I'm always on the lookout for good pockets of light. Having open pockets of light/sky directly behind me (or even better, off to one side and behind me for directional lighting) will create beautiful catchlights with no need to add anything in Photoshop. I've never added fake catchlights in Photoshop so they are all real. If I am in an area shooting and the light/catchlights just aren't there, we reposition or move completely. I won't shoot in bad light. I very rarely use a reflector either so good light is crucial to my style. I do enhance the existing lighting in post processing but I don't create light that isn't there. I will brighten highlighted areas and sometimes darken shadows also for a more dramatic look but that's about it.
Lisa_Holloway wrote:
Thank you for your kind words! To answer your questions, I'm always on the lookout for good pockets of light. Having open pockets of light/sky directly behind me (or even better, off to one side and behind me for directional lighting) will create beautiful catchlights with no need to add anything in Photoshop. I've never added fake catchlights in Photoshop so they are all real. If I am in an area shooting and the light/catchlights just aren't there, we reposition or move completely. I won't shoot in bad light. I very rarely use a reflector either so good light is crucial to my style. I do enhance the existing lighting in post processing but I don't create light that isn't there. I will brighten highlighted areas and sometimes darken shadows also for a more dramatic look but that's about it. ...Show more →
What percentage of your delivered image would you say are close to SOOC?
I think what grabs me most about your images besides the great light and creativeness in them would have to be how you are able to consistently replicate such neutral flesh tones while saturating everything else around your subject making your colors pop. every persons flesh tones look the same almost.
Do you take a custom white balance every session? or do you just shoot in auto WB with raw and grab a white point?
I myself can never manage to get flesh tones that neutral and natural looking in camera even with a proper custom WB and a proper exposure in my histogram so i'm racking my brain trying to figure out how to replicate those flesh tones lol
nextelbuddy wrote:
What percentage of your delivered image would you say are close to SOOC?
I think what grabs me most about your images besides the great light and creativeness in them would have to be how you are able to consistently replicate such neutral flesh tones while saturating everything else around your subject making your colors pop. every persons flesh tones look the same almost.
Do you take a custom white balance every session? or do you just shoot in auto WB with raw and grab a white point?
I myself can never manage to get flesh tones that neutral and natural looking in camera even with a proper custom WB and a proper exposure in my histogram so i'm racking my brain trying to figure out how to replicate those flesh tones lol...Show more →
Thank you again everyone for the kind words! I do not do a custom white balance unless I'm shooting a newborn indoors. I move around so often and the lighting situations are constantly changing so I've trained my eyes pretty well to 'see' good color. Using the white balance selector in your raw editor to click on something white in the photo or something grey can usually give you a decent start in getting nice color. I will do that if I can and tweak from there. I do use adjustment layers in PS and masking to separate my subject from the background - so many of my adjustments may only effect background/clothing/hair (sometimes). Other than white balance/color, my images don't generally stray too far from the SOOC. I'm definitely more of a clean editor in general.
