High Key portrait shots

[Reschsmooth]

I am still learning how to set up lights for different kinds of shots. Today, I was aiming for simple high key lighting. I think I still have a long way to go, but I would appreciate your feedback. We were limited in terms of spacial lay out as our family room is reasonably crampt.

Two of Alicia & Alex:





Two shots of Alicia by herself:





My own criticism:

1. Our monitor is uncalibrated so the WB may be off, and the shots could do with some more contrast, I reckon.
2. If I could, I would place the main background light further away from the camera angle.

I would appreciate yours.

[Bindii]

1st and third catch my eye.. I like them.. not so sure on the colour in the last one though..

[Reschsmooth]

Thanks Sue. My WB is somewhat off. Here is a link to the original version of the last one before I thought to change the colour appearance. I think this one is a little dark.

[Bindii]

Thanks Sue. My WB is somewhat off. Here is a link to the original version of the last one before I thought to change the colour appearance. I think this one is a little dark.

Well on my monitor the colour is far better in the unedited version.. I really like it as it is actually..

[blacknstormy]

I love the first one !!!! Looks like a shot from a catalogue - vibrant colours, movement - great stuff

[Mj]

Patrick,

First on is most definitely pick of the bunch for this style... #2 and #4 are off colour and somewhat blown. #3 isn't quite right somehow... I think that Alicia is not fully in focus (at least her hands are OOO which doesn't work for me in this style). Hard to do this sort of thing without plenty of working room for the lights and camera though.

Michael

[Reschsmooth]

Thanks for the feedback guys. For the shots of Alicia by herself, and some of her with Alex, I had the camera on a tripod with cable release and using manual focus. However, this , I later realised, caused problems including changing composition and relative DOF if Alicia moved. The reason I did it was to allow me to interact better with them both when they were sitting.

It is obvious from my own observations and the feedback that my laptop needs calibration.

Michael, I think the "blown" appearance might stem from the background light (camera right) which is spilling into the frame, causing some flare and loss of contrast. This follows on to your comment about working space!

Thanks again guys, much appreciated.

[Wocka]

Hi Patrick,

The second is a cracker. Fantastic.

Cheers

[Geoff]

Patrick,
I think this is some of your best stuff yet!
As already mentioned the WB is a little off in some of them but that can be fixed easily with (as you say) a calibrated monitor.
It worked well to interact with them both and the eye contact, poses and vibrance of these shots are excellent! I don't think there's an issue with contrast personally.
In the last two of Alicia, did u have a fan blowing in her face? Her hair seems to be blown somewhat (which is a good effect actually).
Keep up the great work, can't wait to see more when you have a bit more room to move! Excellent!

[Reschsmooth]

Patrick,
I think this is some of your best stuff yet!
As already mentioned the WB is a little off in some of them but that can be fixed easily with (as you say) a calibrated monitor.
It worked well to interact with them both and the eye contact, poses and vibrance of these shots are excellent! I don't think there's an issue with contrast personally.
In the last two of Alicia, did u have a fan blowing in her face? Her hair seems to be blown somewhat (which is a good effect actually).
Keep up the great work, can't wait to see more when you have a bit more room to move! Excellent!

Thanks Geoff (& Warwick),

Geoff, I notice it was much easier to get Alex's attention when I wasn't hidden by the camera, although this caused a few compositional problems as already mentioned (I couldn't physically go back any further with the tripod!). I did use a fan to get some hair movement in all of them. I find it gives it a bit more of a "fresher" look which I think is consistant with the high key look I was after. I will admit I don't think it worked in all of them.

[Alpha_7]

I really like the shots, and I like your idea of stepping out from behind the camera to get a better interaction and response from your models. I'd say stopping down the lens a little more to give more DOF and (when you have the space, which you said you didn't) shooting a little wider could help with the composition and focus issues. And as has been said the WB on the first of Alicia by herself is better then the second.

[Matt. K]

I think the images are poorly framed. Cutting off the elbows,fingers and the top of the head and the hands normally weakens the composition. How we use the edges of the image space is often problematic and should be thought about long and hard before making the exposure. Note that in the last image the point of interest is her head/face....but it only occupies about 15% of the image space. The rest of the image space holds nothing of interest to the viewer and is therefore wasted resolution. In the second image we have 2 points of interest being the faces/eyes of the subjects. This device works best when the heads are mucher closer together. If there is too much distance or space between them then we have 2 seperate images in the one photo...this also weakens composition.
The lighting is not bad and as you say,still needs some work before it's perfect high-key. Maybe you should avoid dark colours when going for the high look? Hope this is useful?

[Reschsmooth]

Thanks for the feedback, Craig & Matt.

Craig - your point about stopping down the lens makes sense. I originally didn't as I wasn't getting enough light on the background at f8 or smaller to blow out the background, but then realised I could have fixed this later.

Matt - thanks for the comments regarding composition. A fair amount of the "composition" was a result of cropping out unwanted elements in the frame and then trying to balance the composition which meant, in some cases, chopping off bodily bits and pieces. However, I note and agree with what you said, and will take this into account for future shoots. The choice of clothing was aimed at providing contrast against the background, although perhaps, as you imply, this contradicts the high-key look.