Re: Black&White studio experiments (fashion-ish)
Nice work Madison. Could you add some exif-info for the rookies like me? [:P] It's Show and Tell [A]
I like your style of photos. It's different than most of them studio-portraits.
Are these all self-portraits by the way?
Jan
Re: Black&White studio experiments (fashion-ish)
They are not self portraits. I wish! The model is a pro who I managed to convince to do this test shoot with me for free. Normally he works for big fashion brands like Armani. So I was thrilled he said yes.
It was all shot with a 5D Mk II (that started acting up during the shoot with AF not being sharp all of a sudden).
All shutter speeds are at 1/200 (max flash sync speed on the camera).
Lighting setup is easy: There is one soft box high up to his right. There are two lights on the background with 'flags' between the model and the lights so they only ligt up the background (which I still think was to light even with those lights on their lowest and the main light a lot lot higher) and there is one light to the left, pointed a a white wall so close that I used that to control a reflector (the white wall there could have been obscured with black curtains but I would have needed to reflect anyway so I thought why not add a flash pointed to the wall and use the entire wall as a reflector and control the intensity by controlling the intensity of the light.
I am sure that is nit how you are supposed to do it but it worked for me. I had a different lighting setup planned but when I got to the studio some stuff did not work that was supposed to. So I had to work with crappy 400W Multiblitz flashes that are the worst. They are slow and their power is nowhere near 400ws.
This is why I upped my ISO to 200.
The lens was the 24-105, at various focal lengths depending on the pose and all images were cropped down.
Conversion to black & white in Photoshop (Alien Skin Exposure) after first being converted to a color graded version that I was not happy with (See color outtake below) and the black & white was dodged and burned and had grain added (when converted in the plugin):
http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._6597444_n.jpg
Re: Black&White studio experiments (fashion-ish)
PS: Jan: I see you're Dutch: so am I! ^_^
PS2: I see you started your photography in 2009. Dont worry: you may think you are a rookie now but things can go pretty fast. I really started photographing in the fall of 2007 and just read and read and read and tried EVERYTHING just to see what it would do and how it would make me feel. So I did landscape, portraits, nudes, architecture, fashion, even two documentary style weddings (Christ, never again: the stress!). In the end I found I learned a lot by just trying stuff and not being afraid to fail epically. You learn anyway, fail or no fail.
So just keep at it and work a lot and you will grow. Faster than you think!
PS3: (Wow it's national PS day) your makeup picture with the girl with the big eyes and weird look is fantastic (I would black & white it and do a little post production but that is just details). And the Triathlon picture is fantastic too because of the amazing place you shot it from!)
Re: Black&White studio experiments (fashion-ish)
Excellent work Madison, I think 2 and 5 are my favorites... I agree that the B&W does more for the feel of those shots. Thanks for sharing.
Re: Black&White studio experiments (fashion-ish)
Thanks for showing us your method Madison.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Madison
PS: Jan: I see you're Dutch: so am I! ^_^
Gezellig![:D]
Yea I learn everytime again. Although it's just my passion, I've got more important stuff going on troughout the weeks, but in the weekends and in my spare time I love to go shoot things [:D] And my style has changed a lot in a year. I love the learning experience. I am not confident enough to do things like weddings etc. Am afraid something goes wrong and I totally end up screwing up some couples "happiest" day in their lives. I don't want to be THAT man [:P] Also I like the fact that I'm "free" I decide what I do and I don't have anyone breathing in my neck. I just like to enjoy it [:D]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Madison
PS3: (Wow it's national PS day) your makeup picture with the girl with the big eyes and weird look is fantastic (I would black & white it and do a little post production but that is just details). And the Triathlon picture is fantastic too because of the amazing place you shot it from!)
Thank you. It's my little sister. I have the great advantage she likes to do some crazy makeup so I can experiment with homemade "studiowork".
I would love to try out your method of editing, but my black and white skills really suck. I just can't make nice black and white edits. But I'm curious about how you would have done it. I love the black and whites in your pictures. It's really a skill you need to develop. I often think people(especially babies) look dead when black and white is poorly done.
I have to admit that PS is my weak point. I like natural pictures and changes while taking pictures instead of post-processing. But I'm getting there step by step.
See you around!
Re: Black&White studio experiments (fashion-ish)
That's because a straight desaturation conversion to black & white doesnt work.
You need a channel mixer and do some contrast stuff and dodge and burn a bit.
I even have plugns that simulate analog film types (Alien Skin Exposure and SilverFX Pro). It helps. Although I do most of it by hand.
Do a search for Photoshop Greyscale Channel Mixer or something similar. totorials should pop up. You can also do it with grayscale in Lightroom and change the grery values per color channel. I can teach you but I am in Rotterdam.
Re: Black&White studio experiments (fashion-ish)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Madison
That's because a straight desaturation conversion to black & white doesnt work.
Correct, I figured that out after trying a few [:P]
I would love to learn to make good black and whites. I'm in Rijssen, so a little off Rotterdam. Like 2 hours.
I'll also look for the aliensoftware, heard a lot of them. When I get some more time, I'll try out a little [:D]
Thanks Madison
Re: Black&White studio experiments (fashion-ish)
Hi Madison,
Black and whites/portraits are not in any way my area of expertise but I can tell that these images are fantastic. #3 is my favorite; they're all great. I'm afraid I can't really critique them, but I can tell you that you did a very nice job with the series.
brendan
