As part of his senior portrait session, this young man (who will be the starting quarterback) had these made at the local stadium. Shot before sunrise at 6:00 am using five 580EX flash units.
You have great control of your lights. It's too bad you lost control of your camera. It's still on horizontal for a tall, upright, athletic young man you scrimped on. Tch, tch.
Cool stuff I really like 1 and 3. On the last one, try and get the flare from the rim lights out. Its a cool effect when it looks like the stadium lights are doing all the rim work.
"Have to agree about the horizontal vs vertical on #1 & #2. Still great shots but would have been improved with different orientation IMHO."
Portraits 1 & 2 break a lot of rules. Both were shot with a wide angle lens at a very close range. #2 is a static pose, subject centered, face going in the same direction as the body. #1 crops the top of the head, as well as the hands. All were done outdoors using 100% artificial light. The post processing is not 'natural.'
It's a good thing photography isn't necessarily about rules.
Very nice work - I bet he loves the shots! Forget the nit pickers and enjoy the satisfaction that this kid will be thrilled with how you made him look.
Excellent job with the lighting ... accents the location and the subject very nicely .... I do agree that the cropping is a little too tight on the first too ... if they were to be framed and/or matted .... you may be getting a little too tight.
"Thanks for the informative post, could you share the processing steps you took on these?"
• The first three were done with Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0's Bleach Bypass filter. The last one was done with CEP 3.0's Tonal Contrast filter. Of course, any plug-in filter can be done in Photoshop alone, but I use these tools to speed production time and ensure consistency.
"Do you have any pictures of the other light set-ups?"
• Each one of these was lit in exactly the same way: two kicker lights at 10:00 and 2:00, main light following the nose.
