p.1 #1 · Garage Studio with Justin and one of his wife
After living in my current home for two years and retiring from the daily 9-5 grind, I decided to start working with studio strobes again. So much to learn and relearn. I'm using a Westcott X-Drop pro background support and in these images, a single Flashpoint 600ws head, placed center front from above, with a 34" beauty dish, and an eyelighter reflector center front from below.
Constructive feedback is always appreciated! Thanks for having a look!
Justin is a professional auctioneer who uses comedy to bring in financial support for good causes.
LEICA SL2Leica APO-Summicron-SL 2/75 ASPH lens75mmf/8.01/250s100 ISO0.0 EV
p.1 #2 · Garage Studio with Justin and one of his wife
Definitely a good re-start. You don't need 600 ws strobes for portraits though. A couple of 300 ws lights like the SK300 or a couple of AD200 or the Flashpoint versions of them would provide way more than enough light for portraiture shoots indoors. It's all that I'll use in my Photo/video studio, except for one DP1000 II that I use with a lens to project light patterns on the background. The lens eats up a lot of light power, but I think I may have over bought on this one.
She is closer to the backdrop, so the light is hitting the backdrop some, and I like this shot better, but you did well on his shots too, if you really wanted them to have the significant black backgrounds. He is standing farther from the background, so no light was reaching it. The Inverse Square Law can be a great help, or a hindrance, if you don't get the spacings right.
p.1 #3 · Garage Studio with Justin and one of his wife
CharleyL wrote:
Definitely a good re-start. You don't need 600 ws strobes for portraits though. A couple of 300 ws lights like the SK300 or a couple of AD200 or the Flashpoint versions of them would provide way more than enough light for portraiture shoots indoors. It's all that I'll use in my Photo/video studio, except for one DP1000 II that I use with a lens to project light patterns on the background. The lens eats up a lot of light power, but I think I may have over bought on this one.
She is closer to the backdrop, so the light is hitting the backdrop some, and I like this shot better, but you did well on his shots too, if you really wanted them to have the significant black backgrounds. He is standing farther from the background, so no light was reaching it. The Inverse Square Law can be a great help, or a hindrance, if you don't get the spacings right.
Thanks Charley. I appreciate the comments and tips. My strobe was powered way down for these (so yeah, overkill for this) and I darkened the background on his shots as he wanted a more masculine effect - and this is just my interpretation.
p.1 #8 · Garage Studio with Justin and one of his wife
Portrait work scares me buddy! Kudos of you to tackle it
For me on the first the small portion of hand is perhaps distracting? The total darkness makes the face a bit too bright for my liking. Wonder how these would look in B&W as well.
Honestly, great work, I am proud of you
The lady looks very nice, maybe more light on her hair on the left? Catchlights look great in all images, as does color balance. Now just add some flowers please
p.1 #9 · Garage Studio with Justin and one of his wife
Really good work. The lighting looks great especially for the headshots.
Some constructive feedback: I think a subtle hair-light would really take these up a notch, especially in the shots where his clothing and hat blend in with the background a bit too much for my personal liking. The hair light would really highlight the structure of the hat, while also making his figure stand out against the background instead of blending into it. I also see some your brush marks for masking in the second and third shots, particularly around his beard. If he plans to use any of these professionally, I might go back and fix that before delivering.
p.1 #10 · Garage Studio with Justin and one of his wife
Karl Witt wrote:
Portrait work scares me buddy! Kudos of you to tackle it
For me on the first the small portion of hand is perhaps distracting? The total darkness makes the face a bit too bright for my liking. Wonder how these would look in B&W as well.
Honestly, great work, I am proud of you
The lady looks very nice, maybe more light on her hair on the left? Catchlights look great in all images, as does color balance. Now just add some flowers please
Take care my friend
Karl
Karl, thanks for the feedback and the kind words. You've made a big difference on how I see things over the years and continue to do so. It's very much appreciated.
So I posted a request for "models" on a local facebook group and came away with three sessions with the goal for me to improve my lighting and setup to help me dial in the settings. The James family came ready to take some great photos and they were fun to work with - so much so it became distracting - so my first lesson was to not let that happen!
Then yeah, not really happy with the background and earlier in the week I had a 100ws flash head boomed over the top of the backdrop and now I wish I had left it there to highlight the hair and hat. I may bump up from the 34" beauty dish I used to one of my 48" octa-boxes to get more wrap around light, but I'll have to figure out the counter weight for that boom setup.
I wish I had caught that hand. Thank for pointing it out as it does look awkward and I'm going to post another of him below with hand shown but in that one, the "hand tuck" under his elbow didn't quite work. I'll have to figure that out as well.
Anyway, hope all is well with you and I'm curious if you picked up the A1 and 400-800?
p.1 #11 · Garage Studio with Justin and one of his wife
DanielScott wrote:
Really good work. The lighting looks great especially for the headshots.
Some constructive feedback: I think a subtle hair-light would really take these up a notch, especially in the shots where his clothing and hat blend in with the background a bit too much for my personal liking. The hair light would really highlight the structure of the hat, while also making his figure stand out against the background instead of blending into it. I also see some your brush marks for masking in the second and third shots, particularly around his beard. If he plans to use any of these professionally, I might go back and fix that before delivering. ...Show more →
Hi Daniel! Thanks for the feedback - much appreciated, especially from an accomplished people photographer like you!
Funny thing, I had a strobe boomed over the back of the backdrop a couple of days earlier and decided to just use the one main light. I'm trying to get a couple more models to volunteer and I'll make sure I have that in place. My space is fairly cramped, but I'll try to get them a bit further from the backdrop as well and in fact, I'm ordering a medium gray one to get rid of the distracting patterns on the one I used here leading my to do some burning on the background.
I'm including an update on one of the shots after doing a bit more work on those brush marks.
