Decorated? She has a BSM which is the same as a MSM but for while serving in a combat zone. If it was for Valor it would have a V. She does have her Jumpmaster which I will give her credit. Advance Airborne is not an easy course.
Strong portrait. Just one little point of critique; I think the legs take away from the image. When I cover her exposed legs, the photo becomes much more powerful in IMHO. Nevertheless a great image with good color tones and lighting. Congrats!
I admire the strength of this image and the Captain's poise of military posture, especially the low angle of the camera. I'd prefer to have the Captain stand upright thus projecting her posture in military portraiture. Standing upright in formal portraiture speaks volume. An US or service flag/signa in the background can be a great addon?
shaunwin wrote:
I admire the strength of this image and the Captain's poise of military posture, especially the low angle of the camera. I'd prefer to have the Captain stand upright thus projecting her posture in military portraiture. Standing upright in formal portraiture speaks volume. An US or service flag/signa in the background can be a great addon?
Thanks for the feedback!
A few reasons I tend to favor seated for these shots:
-Its often hard to get service members to relax vs doing this "I'm super tough." Getting them seated tends to relax them.
-The great challenge of military portraits is the hands. Straight arms are lame, so finding a place to put hands where the arms are bent is key. Not allowed in pockets. So I can either use a prop (such as the back of a chair), I can beat hands on hips to death, I can put them in parade rest (see above), I can stick to just head and shoulders, or I can have them seated.
I don't want the flag in the backdrop for two reasons:
-Its a distraction making the shot more busy
-It moves the portraits in the direction of the same official portraits that no one likes.
So I have a flag if someone REALLY wants it or needs an actual official portrait, but I generally avoid it. I think there's plenty of patriotism going on in the shots.
the lighting, the pose, her composure all add to a spirit that shines.
i am a novice at portraiture.
i do work at it. i look. i analyze. i try to learn.
if i may ask one question: why photograph the broad side of your subject's face?
i read, watched, listened to so many folks who suggest photographing the short side, especially when employing a rembrandt-style lighting.
again, thank you for the effort and the sharing.
thumbs up.
rob
Rob, thanks for the kind words and a very fair question. The whole broad vs. short lighting thing is complicated and has an interesting history. If you look at most of Rembrandt's actual paintings, his pattern was more commonly associated with broad lighting than short.
I suspect the two reasons why most classical painters preferred broad lighting were:
1. A fuller face was more desirable back in the day, as it was a sign of health/wealth
2. From a purely compositional standpoint, for caucasian subjects, placing the shadow on the edge of the face and head will create a more balanced composition (as most hair in these portraits is darker than caucasian skin). Dark, light, dark is what happens with broad light. With short light, it creates an unbalanced highlight on the side that must either be balanced by a rim light (less commonly available in natural light studios) or some other bright compositional element.
In my view broad lighting lends itself toward a more painterly style of light and posing, and as above it still works to create a nicely balanced portrait from a purely graphical standpoint.
Additionally from a military portrait standpoint, look at the beret. Most soldiers are positioned body facing camera left because it places the personal awards to the fore. Unless I bring chin back across midline (which I sometimes do but not here) the flap of the beret will tend to obscure the light on the right eye unless I drop the modifier very low or place it far front, neither of which is appealing to me for most of these portraits. Instead, a broad Rembrandt creates a nice triangle that mirrors the angle of the beret flap.
As a side bonus, I'm actually trying not to make the awards bling out too much. The metallic badges are very shiny and tend to flare out, and even the ribbons are somewhat reflective. Short lighting tends to make the awards brighter and sometimes even reflect specular highlights straight into the camera, whereas broad lighting over the shoulder subdues the awards somewhat, though I can keep them legible with some careful fill.
And finally, for my young fit people, the slight rounding of the face is less of a concern to me, especially if I feather the softbox off the back ear, or even flag it which I often do. By keeping a little shadow on the near cheek by some combination of feathering and flagging, the widening tendency of broad lighting may be mitigated.
So there's your treatise on why 3/4 of my military portraits use broad lighting these days. YMMV.
i read it once and i understood what you were sharing.
i now need to read it 2-3 times more to learn what you were sharing!
and since you were so kind, perhaps i can have you share your thoughts on back light/hair light with these types of portraits.
again, thank you for your work and generous spirit.
thumbs up,
rob
Evan Baines wrote:
Rob, thanks for the kind words and a very fair question. The whole broad vs. short lighting thing is complicated and has an interesting history. If you look at most of Rembrandt's actual paintings, his pattern was more commonly associated with broad lighting than short.
I suspect the two reasons why most classical painters preferred broad lighting were:
1. A fuller face was more desirable back in the day, as it was a sign of health/wealth
2. From a purely compositional standpoint, for caucasian subjects, placing the shadow on the edge of the face and head will create a more balanced composition (as most hair in these portraits is darker than caucasian skin). Dark, light, dark is what happens with broad light. With short light, it creates an unbalanced highlight on the side that must either be balanced by a rim light (less commonly available in natural light studios) or some other bright compositional element.
In my view broad lighting lends itself toward a more painterly style of light and posing, and as above it still works to create a nicely balanced portrait from a purely graphical standpoint.
Additionally from a military portrait standpoint, look at the beret. Most soldiers are positioned body facing camera left because it places the personal awards to the fore. Unless I bring chin back across midline (which I sometimes do but not here) the flap of the beret will tend to obscure the light on the right eye unless I drop the modifier very low or place it far front, neither of which is appealing to me for most of these portraits. Instead, a broad Rembrandt creates a nice triangle that mirrors the angle of the beret flap.
As a side bonus, I'm actually trying not to make the awards bling out too much. The metallic badges are very shiny and tend to flare out, and even the ribbons are somewhat reflective. Short lighting tends to make the awards brighter and sometimes even reflect specular highlights straight into the camera, whereas broad lighting over the shoulder subdues the awards somewhat, though I can keep them legible with some careful fill.
And finally, for my young fit people, the slight rounding of the face is less of a concern to me, especially if I feather the softbox off the back ear, or even flag it which I often do. By keeping a little shadow on the near cheek by some combination of feathering and flagging, the widening tendency of broad lighting may be mitigated.
So there's your treatise on why 3/4 of my military portraits use broad lighting these days. YMMV.
i read it once and i understood what you were sharing.
i now need to read it 2-3 times more to learn what you were sharing!
and since you were so kind, perhaps i can have you share your thoughts on back light/hair light with these types of portraits.
again, thank you for your work and generous spirit.
thumbs up,
rob
Rob,
Sometimes I'll use hair and accent lights, but getting back to the goal of a painterly style, most of the classic painters placed a subject by a (hopefully north facing) window and the fill was accomplished by the ambient room lighting or reflected window light. So while I've got nothing against using an accent light, I find that 9/10 times it tends to push the style of a portrait in a certain direction that is either more commercial or graphic than classical. Below is one where I used an accent light, and there's one in the set I just posted. Incidentally, the shot below uses the accent in part to balance the short lighting by creating a light-dark-light shape to head, rather than leaving the facial lighting unbalanced. Unbalanced is sometimes desirable, but not I think here.
What you'll see though as a common theme in a lot of my lighting is a particular chiaroscuro effect I love where I broad light the subject with a feathered light source that also feathers across the backdrop. This leaves the light side of the face against the darkest part of the background, and the shadow side of the face against the lightening background. To me, this gives dimensionality and dynamic tension to the composition. Throwing an accent into the mix just spoils that pattern.
And with regards to this particular shot, she's an intelligence officer. I wanted a darker and mysterious vibe, so less accents here.
