HUTCH Backstage pt 2

[PiroStitch]

Caitlin (from Neighbours)

[Geoff]

Great shots and excellent use of available light or added flash? How did u light these?? Lucky man!!

[Laurie]

the decor of the 'backstage' matches perfectly with the fashion of the models. i love the first one and the last one
2 seems to be a little blurry and the pose seems unnatural, perhaps she should have been holding the metal fence wire thing. and not bent her wrist so much, but what do i know!


I didn't recognise Caitlin.

Nice work Piro

[Heath Bennett]

1 and 3 are in a league of their own. Number 2 still has its merits, but the models expression and stance doesn't do much for me - she looks like she is doing the motorboat with her lips - perhaps to try and make them look like Jolie?

Love the use of light and backgrounds especially.

[Alpha_7]

Wayne, "Impressive, most Impressive"

#1 is my Favourite and then I think I prefer #3 just slightly over #2.

(#2 I dont' like the angles in her left arm, reaching up, and as heath mentioned her lips are fantastic.. but both those niggles are more model then your photography...

[macka]

I'm not really in a position to critique this style of shot, but I will say that these appeal to me.

I'd really like to see some exif (yours has been stripped) and hear how you achieved the lighting in these shots.

Cheers,

[PiroStitch]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to critique and offer your feedback. It's greatly appreciated!

Agreed that #2 is probably the weakest out of this set and I wasn't quite satisfied with her pose. Should have seen the ones I dumped...or maybe not There's more to shooting beautiful models backstage than the lighting, composition, tone, etc. I need to work on the poses as well and cheers for pointing it out. Have to get better at it as that's one aspect I continuously struggle with, even with other types of shoots and I digress. Personal replies are as follows.

Geoff - All lit using just the one 580EX fired off camera using Canon's short as heck off camera cord. I still prefer the SC-29 due to length and that it has an AF assist at both ends. Canon only has AF assist from the flash which makes it trickier to aim.

Laurie - The blur might have been added during PP though I didn't gaussian blur the image at all. Have a feeling might have been caused by the curve manipulations and made it lose a bit on contrast, hence the "blurriness".

Heath - Thanks Heath. I was worried about the surroundings but then again, I prefer dirty and dingy environments than clinically clean surroundings for shooting. I have no idea what she was thinking and I really should have picked up on it immediately.

Craig - Thanks Darth I like the style of #1 but the main issue I have is that it didn't show the outfit. Also it's been pointed out to me to lighten up the left side of the couch as it's a tad dark and does throw the composition out a bit. Will re-work and re-post.

Macka - Doesn't matter whether you're in a position or not Appreciate your feedback either way. All the shots were at ISO 1600 Hovered around f5 and f5.6 and shutter speed about 1/125s.

I made a couple of mistakes during this shoot, namely the model poses as has been kindly pointed out but I also forgot to turn down the ISO.

All the lighting was done through a 580EX fired off camera. I can't take all the credit for it though as the technique and artistic styling has been influenced by Wendell and other photographers from the fashion magazines.

Something else I learnt, well re-affirmed, is to take the time in post processing these images especially the backstage ones. It's no longer a case of converting from RAW to TIF to jpg. If I want the results, then I have to put in the efforts

[Reschsmooth]

Wayne, I really like what you have done here, however, apart from the pose in no 2 (which has already been pointed out), I think the look on the model's face lets no 3 down - she looks scared!

Everything really comes together in no 1 - the look, pose, comp, lighting and exposure.

P

[Cre8tivepixels]

Nice stuff mate.....did you use some sort of filter (plugin) for the grimey like tones you got?

Care to share?

No1 IS A CRACKER!!!

Dan

[PiroStitch]

Patrick - I do have one of her smiling which I'll work on for you. I preferred this shot as it suited the environment and final styling which was edgy and modern for my liking.

Dan - No filters or plugins. Just good ol' fashion curve manipulation and layer styles. And a Wacom to help with dodging and burning to boot.

[Cre8tivepixels]

Patrick - I do have one of her smiling which I'll work on for you. I preferred this shot as it suited the environment and final styling which was edgy and modern for my liking.

Dan - No filters or plugins. Just good ol' fashion curve manipulation and layer styles. And a Wacom to help with dodging and burning to boot.

Awesome very nice.....i love your stuff.

Dan

[PiroStitch]

For Patrick - see models can smile

[wendellt]

that backstage format is kick ass it really looks like a full on styled shoot

1st one is my pic very lovely great blue greyish tones suites 1920- retro look

the other two are similar but they just lack that extra attention to pose and expression

but the look is spot on gorgeous

[wendellt]

actually wayne i was thinking the first one is great but just a pointer
for backstage stuff its about reportaghe as well so showing the fashion in full isnt all that important but i hope you got a full length shot of her because in that shot you dont see much of the dress even though the overall image is a winner

anyway the styling is beautiful so keep up the excellent work
make those designers and pr people and get invited to more and more shows!

[Oz_Beachside]

Dear Friend,
These are GREAT!!!
First scan through, thoughts were, wow, grungy, creative lighting,
contrast of new beauty and old decor, effective burn/dodge usage. I really like them.

I wanted to share my thoughts also, that if these were mine, how I might take away some learnings..

After about 10 minutes of thought, and looking over them, some additional thoughts
(which may or may not aply, but I am not privy to your brief, so here they are anyway).

#1 - love the separation to the blue wall (is this through burn tool?). The flash is very harsh, note no detail under chin. Also, the light looks very small/narrow, so it lights the face well, but I hate the grey legs. This might be in line with the semi-goth look she has,
but I would like to get those legs to look more like skin tones. Looks like her legs are dead...
I think the head and shoulders are bang on, but from biceps down, morbid. (I have had the same problem with portable flash, if I use direct, the light is a point light source, too harsh for my requirements, also, not even enough over the length of the subject. Thats what I was playing with the silly flash bracket softbox for. Sunday I will try that on a full length model and let you know how it goes).

#2 - WB very different to the others? or golden tan? I like your use of leading lines, the brickwork, and the steel bars, lead into the subject perfectly! You have also picked the door as a background to frame the key focal point, her face, well done, and congrats! The light looks like it is overhead, perhaps a little high. What do you think of bringing it
down to lens height, to get rid of the nose shadow, and strong shadow over her right shoulder? (another reason I wanted to soften the light from my SB800 through a softbox (imaging how silly that would look walking around, but I love the light)).

Same issue with the legs (and perhaps your client might prefer with the dress), the light is high, and the legs are grey. The dress is dark. Maybe lower the light source? Maybe bounce? Maybe silly softbox. Maybe a second flash 1-2 stops under, mounted to your belt with bungee balls? Hmmm, hadn’t thought of mounting a flash on my belt before… can you get a "hotshoe beltclip"

#3 – I like her pose. I like the consistent lines in the wall paper, and her arm. I hate the grey leg look. I love these shots, but the grey legs bother me… Also, by bringing the flash across to camera right, might have given you the lighting needed for separation on the right hand side of her, I cant see the design of the outfit, and I assume that’s what this shoot was for, the clothing. Now, how to get flash camera right, while holding a 5D and a corded flash? Maybe that Isaac Newton moment I had just a minute ago, the bungee ball secured second flash on your belt (your SB800 in SU4?). Or a less flexible bracket (I know you prefer handheld flash). Maybe on camera?

#4 – the smile, with the partially visible tongue, behind the teeth is an alluring smile.

Overall, very impressive. I am enjoying the learning myself, and watching your improvements gives me some hope

[PiroStitch]

Thanks Wendell. Yeah I'm not too pleased with the first photo only because it didn't quite show the dress she was wearing.

Bruce - Thanks for the tips and comments. You've brought up a very good point which I'll need to pay attention to as well during processing. The originals were fairly evenly lit including the models' legs so they did retain colour. It was lost when I desaturated the reds and yellows to give it a bit more style. It's not as difficult as I originally expected to handhold the 5D and 580EX one in each hand. It gives me a lot more flexibility to direct the flash from different sides quite easily.

Depending on what i want to achieve, I'll take at least a few shots and vary the lighting position. The first one I had it front on just held above my head to my right.

With shots like these, throw WB out the window as I change the colour and tones to suit what end result. If it was for a more real world colour brief, then it would be an issue.

Thanks for the considered response

[Oz_Beachside]

I'm interested to clarify your single point flash result. so was the skin on the legs exposed similar to the face? can you post one with less color and burning?

[PiroStitch]

Here are a couple of the files, pretty much as raw as possible with a slight curve adjustment. I tend to do curve adjustments in Rawshooter, then another lot in P/shop. Just gives it a bit more contrast for my style of shooting.



Ok so the second one wasn't as "even" as originally said. I really wanted the emphasis to be pretty much her face and most of the outfit. As you can see, she was lit from the left, just above my head. Can't remember the flash output, I think it was TTL at -2/3. For me the light falloff is just nice

[Oz_Beachside]

thanks for sharing, and being so open, I truly appreciate it.

It helps me, and no doubt others, learn. As when you only see the finished product (and a great product it is), its hard to know sometimes what the work in progress looked like from the camera.

[PiroStitch]

Happy to help out wherever I can. Hopefully people won't misunderstand and think that I didn't put much thought into the lighting and composition in the first place and heavily depended on PP to "save" the image. I'm not a huge fan of that type of mentality and would never stoop to do it.

I think I only spent about 15 mins on each image, or thereabouts. Felt like it but might have been longer. I was quite out of it from fatigue during the processing. I had to meet a crazy deadline for the images.

[Heath Bennett]

pirostitch - I can see exactly where you are coming from, but I think these images are strong without any PP. I am sure you are like the rest of us - looking through a pile of pics and PPing the ones that
"work".

Love the honesty in the posting of the originals. Of course the intent will always be to do the minimal PP, as images react to over PPing negatively.

[PiroStitch]

Heath couldn't agree with you more. I do try to keep PP to a minimum believe it or not The way I see it, it's an aid to allow me to achieve a certain style and look and feel of the final image. Similar to an artist who paints a portrait. You can't limit him or her by saying you're only allowed to use x amount of paint to complete the piece.

Don't worry mate, I don't plan on going overboard on the PP. I do have my limits. If after awhile I can't get a pic to work in a certain style or achieve a certain outlook, I review the pic continuously wondering whether the base image worked in the first place. If not, then I trash it completely and leave it in its raw format.

I don't plan on spending 20 hours PP-ing 90 images in a certain style. I'd go mad

I'm learning as much as I can and willing to help others along the way...as long as they use it for good and not evilness

[Pehpsi]

love the lighting in number 3 i couldn't do what you have done...