foto feedback

Britt says …

Today marks my one month at the new job, Worcester Magazine. It’s been four weeks of emptying my bank account on a Nikon D3, TTL cord, and a light stand head to attach the stand, umbrella, and SB-800 I already had. Now what do I do with this stuff? Well, for it being my first month, I screwed up royally, took a couple mediocre shots, and actually made one or two people look halfway decent.

When I first started shooting portraits with the SB-800 shooting through a white umbrella, I thought the lighting I was doing was dramatic. Now that I look at it, yes it was. Compared to having 12 rectangular florescent bulbs coming from a flat ceiling.

Teacher of the Year. Okay, so put her in her classroom, have her sit amongst the desks with a couple text books showing what subject she teaches. A little too typical, wouldn’t you say? I set the flash up with the umbrella at camera right, facing back towards the camera so not to reflect off the windows behind. I tried to feather the light. Maybe a little too feathered?

This was tough for me. I have the SB-800 shooting through the white umbrella at camera front left. I wanted to light just half his face perfectly, while the other side was a stop or two darker. There was too much spill for the white wall behind him, and not enough spill near his feet. Also, I just happened to choose the most reflective object I could find for him to sit on.

And for last week’s cover shot, I went drama-tic:

The idea behind the shot was the question “Is the curtain closing on live theatre?” Effective?

To light this, I shut off all the lights in the room, with just a little bit of natural light coming from windows about 20 feet away, and some ambient from the room next door. Here was the stand set-up:

Scott says …

The teacher portrait. This is a little dull, but it’s not poorly lit. When you’re making portraits, you have to think about the appropriateness of the kind of light you’re using. So you don’t want to get all dramatic on the teacher of the year — unless the teacher of the year is a former Navy SEAL who busts kids’ heads open in gym class (we can dream, right?). She’s clearly not that, so this light works.

I think you have two problems with this photo: composition and color. She’s a little too far left, her hands are cut off at an awkward place, and there’s a big boring empty spot on the right side of the frame. Methinks you were a bit preoccupied with the light and forgot the composition. And overall, the picture seems a little yellowish and flat. Nothing a little toning couldn’t fix.

On to the ladder guy. Where to begin? His head merges into the dark background, there are distracting messy elements all over, the vertical wide-angle composition is awkward, and he’s strangely washed out in his mid-section.

I think I see what you were going for here, and the only way to accomplish it is to get rid of everything else in the picture except for your guy and a little bit of ladder. How do you do that? With snoots and gobos and flags. Get rid of your umbrella and direct your light only at your subject, and direct it away from the background. Use a nice low ISO and fast shutter to get rid of any ambient. Hide a snooted backlight behind him for a nice rim/hairlight.

Snoots and gobos are invaluable lighting tools and easy to make for next to nothing. I used a piece of tin foil as a snoot for years. A piece of cardboard taped to the side of your flash can keep your light off the background. Search Strobist for advice on making a nicer snoot using straws.

And finally, the theatre shot. Bravo! Great control of light and color. Just one criticism: I want to see his eyes. If he were looking up a bit, then we get a peep of the peepers. Then you’ve hit it out of the park.