Photos: Success Requires Effort

Scheduling a photo shoot requires coordinating a lot of schedules and can lead to quite the drama at times. And in general success in life and in business requires not only skill, but also perseverance, and a willingness to go the extra mile on occasion even in light of adversity. Such was the case with a recent project.

This shoot had a full team (make-up, hair, wardrobe, model), meaning 6 schedules (including mine and studio time) that all had to be lined up. The planning for this shoot actually goes about 6 weeks back when the concept was selected and the original casting was done.

The original cast was done with model A. Everything looked good until T-4 days. Then a message from the model that she had to be out of town for an excusable reason. Back to the drawing board. Rescheduling for the models availability, or finding a different model? If the team is smaller, or if there are extremely unique requirements for model choice I would reschedule. But for a team of this size, that’s challenging. OK, so new model. But because this shoot involved wardrobe that was specifically bought to the model’s measurements, it meant I could only pick models that had the same height, same shoe size, same basic measurements, and also had the right look and class for the shoot . That’s a radically smaller pool to choose from (6’, shoe size 8.5, and about 125lbs). That left me with 3 choices in my virtual rolodex. Contacting models – model B was interested, but had to see if she could get someone to take her shift at work. Model C was interested. No word from model D. T-3 days. Heard back from model B that she was unable to find a shift replacement, so she’s out of the pool unfortunately. Plans final again with model C, disaster avoided. Phew!

Fast forward to T-1 day, afternoon. Call from model C – car broke down out of town, holiday weekend, can’t find a mechanic, will not make it back. %&$*@~!!! Now with less than 24hrs to go it’s increasingly harder with such a small pool to find a replacement. Model C still working out if there’s anyway she can get her car fixed. OK, keep me posted, but I need to make contingency plans, or this shoot isn’t going to happen.

Day of shoot, 6:40am, still no word from model C. Then an e-mail from model D, she hadn’t checked her e-mail, sorry, maybe another time. Well, I’m down to the wire, this didn’t sound like a firm no. Yes it’s 6:40am, but she just used e-mail. Pick up the phone call her. Short conversation. She doesn’t have gas money and has to be at school. Sorry. Hmm, that didn’t work. Still no solution, clock ticking.

7am, doing my round on Facebook. See status msg from model D that she feels like she just missed a great opportunity. Hmm, maybe it’s time to prove that success does require perseverance. Text model D – is the reason she’s not available the gas money or the school schedule? There may be ways around that. Answer: gas money. OK, Google Maps – she lives 2 1/2 hrs from here. But it’s a nice day, and I enjoy getting out of town every once in a while. So, re-arrange day schedule. Leave town at T-7hrs to pick up model. But she has to be back at school the next morning. So we shoot until 11pm, and then after cleaning up the studio, another 5hrs of driving to get the model back home. Finally home myself by 5:30am. One hour of sleep before the next day starts. On the way I pulled of the side of the road to get a quick break for the eyes. Trooper knocks on the window - ‘Just taking a nap?’, ‘Yes, just needed a quick break’. ‘No problem, just making sure you were ok’….

But I did get the shot. And in the end that’s all that counts:

Credits: Kayla (model), Stace (make-up), Jessee (hair), Hallie (wardrobe)

Photos: Lighting Patterns

It is interesting to look at lighting patterns in relationship to ethnic background. One such element is that darker skinned people usually look best in a split lighting pattern, vs. fair skinned people look best with a 45 degree loop light. Once you think about it, it makes sense – for an image to be flattering, it needs to look three dimensional and highlight the person’s features in a positive way. And getting three dimensions in a two dimensional medium is accomplished using highlights and shadows. Having the light come from the front and then fall off on the sides of a light skinned face makes that happen. With a dark skinned face though the fall-off adds too much contrast to the scene. Using a split lighting pattern takes advantage of the darker skin and moves the shadows to the front, while avoiding fast fall-off on the sides.

Here are two images I took of Issie, our featured model on Wednesday night:

 

Credits: Issie (model), Sheila (make-up)

Photoshop Learning's

There is a million ways of doing things in Photoshop. And over time everyone develops their own little favorite bag of tricks. So here is a set of tricks I’ve used in recent weeks. Some of those you probably already know, some may be new, so just in case (these are all for CS4, some may or may not work in prior versions):

• Clipping Masks: By creating a clipping mask for any layer (through the fly-out menu), any adjustment or content in that layer will only apply to pixels in the layer it is attached to. A great solution for making localized color or exposure changes.
• Snap to Guides: Guides can be great tools to help snap elements to it as you’re moving things around. The easiest way to create a guide – drag the mouse from the ruler into your image.
• Subtract/Add on selection tools: Most times creating a selection some fine tuning is needed. Subtract an area, add an area that the selection tool just didn’t get right. Of course there is the submenu to switch the tool. But much easier is holding down the Alt key to temporarily switch the tool to the opposite mode.
• Moving layers between files: Have a background layer or texture that needs to get loaded? Or a standard copyright template? Easiest way is to open it into a new file (from Lightroom or Bridge), then go to ‘Duplicate Layer’ and select the correct document. That duplicates the layer into the original document. If the windows are tiled you can also just drag-drop the layer.
• Visualizing a layer mask: If you use layer masks a lot, sometimes it’s nice to visualize them in the image. Use the ‘\’ key to display it in quick-mask mode as a red overlay.
• Visualizing clippings: When adjusting levels, sometimes it’s nice to see where the clipping threshold is first breached. Holding down the Alt key while adjusting the slider will add a mask that illustrates this in real time.
• Tool Switching: Retouching often requires a multitude of tools is used, switching frequently. Using the pen to click the toolbar, particularly when cycling through the sub-options of a tool can be very time consuming and disruptive to the flow. Knowing the short cuts for each tool (b = brush, s = clone, j = heal, etc.) saves a lot of time. And with the preferences configured correctly, pushing the shortcut for the currently active tool cycles through the sub-options. So a single key stroke of the left hand gets you from dodge to burn to brush while keeping the right hand on the pen.
• Non-destructive dodge & burn: I’ve switched to rely on dodge & burn a lot more to even out skin, rather than healing brushes. It is less destructive on the texture and thus creates a better result. But it requires practice. And with anything in Photoshop – if there’s a non-destructive option, it’s always preferred. The trick to non-destructive dodge & burn is a separate layer filled with 50% grey and softlight blend mode. Then use a 5% opacity soft brush and the dodge & burn tool removes skin blemishes.
• Cloning in tight spaces: Ever cloned close to a transition area in an image, and struggling to get in tight without working pixel by pixel? The easy fix is to select the area that needs to stay as-is, inverse the selection, and then use the clone stamp. Because of the selection, it’s ok to work with a larger brush – it won’t overreach.

There are probably more that I can’t think of right now. So we’ll keep this list short, but I might add to it over the coming weeks….

Technique – balancing color temperature

The other day I was commenting on a friend’s blog on techniques to balance the color temperature between ambient and flash light when shooting outdoors. The challenge exists particularly in the morning and evening hours when the sunlight is much warmer than the 5000K daylight most flashes come out at. The shoot last night gave me an opportunity to try yet another technique…

On the left is the exposure with just standard corrections for overall white balance and exposure. This was shot in the last few seconds before the sun went below the horizon. Amber and Erik were standing in the water about 20ft from the shore, where I had a beauty dish setup to provide fill light, which of course only falls onto the models. With the white balance corrected for the ambient light, the flash fill turns much too cool for how the moment feels.

So here are a number of ways to fix it:

• Gel the flash with a CTO gel to be warmer.
• Process the image twice with different white balance corrections and then merge the two
• Use a selective curve adjustment layer to bring up the color to more natural skin tone.

Gelling the flash is the least practical, because the color temperature is a moving target that late in the day. It literally changes by the minute. Also - gelling a small flash is one thing, but gelling a larger head with a beauty dish is a more complex procedure. The one advantage the gel has, it doesn’t require any post-processing, so if you have more than one shot, there is a lot of efficiency to be gained.

Processing the image twice is very straight forward. Open up the image twice in camera raw, select different white balance, then put both layers in Photoshop and add a layer mask to merge the two. The one difficulty is finding a good reference point for the white balance.

Now the third option: I wrote earlier on interesting techniques about setting skin color tone which I learned in the book ‘Skin’. This opens up an easier method for fixing this: set two or three color samplers on the skin, change them to CMYK. Then add a curves layer and adjust each of the channels until they have the right CMY ratio for Caucasian skin. Add a layer mask to the curves layer so it only affects the models. Maybe a bit layer opacity to dial the effect up or down. Done.

Photos: On The Beach

Yesterday we went back to the location we shot on Wednesday. We shot in later afternoon sun, this time facing North, and with a similar lighting setup – large scrim and beauty dish. I liked this location because it gives a distinct background with the higher hills, but it doesn’t scream Seattle location. It might be further South.

Credits: AmberLee (model), Shyn (make-up & hair), Robert (grip)

In Studio and On Location

This week Wednesday night took us on location to the beach not far from our studio. In the summer the sun sets in Seattle only after 9pm, and the sunset is a rather slow process. Which makes it ideal for location shoots.

The first two shots are a continuation of recent studio lighting patterns and backgrounds. The first one looking for a sitting pose, but one that is not too glamorous. The lighting consisted of a v-bank camera right, a black card for some subtractive fill on the left, and a bar bulb strobe high on the right for a bit of kick in the hair. The second shot was a test of the new props I acquired the other day (see previous post). And props don’t always have to be used straight, turning them around gives a whole new set of options.

And these are two of the shots from the location. It was low tide, so there was plenty of beach real estate to work with, and various wood pylons sticking out. These were taken about 1 hour before sunset but the sun was already pretty low over the horizon. To manage harsh shadows we used a large 2/3rd stop scrim and then a battery powered beauty dish to bring the light back in with a lot softer feel. One of the key things when working with sun and flash though is to align the light in a way that it still feels believable or natural. I’ve seen other location shoots where the light was reflected from the opposite side, and if not done carefully, it can be quite visually confusing…

Credits: Andrea (model), Ceilia (make-up), Jessee (hair), Bret, Florian, and Daan (grip)

Accessories make all the difference

Well, camera accessories too, but in this case I’m thinking more of the type of accessories that are in the picture, rather than make the picture happen.

If a model just shows up in street clothes, it may be possible to create an interesting portrait image, but it’s really hard to come up with an appealing studio model shot. First of all, street clothes, and what looks appealing in a shot are two different things. But then, it’s not only about a dress, or pants and a shirt, but also matching accessories – a well fitting pair of shoes, a handbag, a hat, some jewelry. It has to look interesting and appealing.

Here a quick illustration with two images from last Wednesday – same model, one plain (though with good shoes), and one with hat and a small bag, that not only give the hands something to do, but also add a touch of color to the image, and put some natural interest into other areas of the image:

 

What both of these images are missing is some sort of other prop, which can further enhance the image, without becoming a visual distraction. There’s only so many images you can shoot of floor and wall before it’s a lot of the same.

Earlier today I took a trip down to Ikea to do some prop hunting at affordable rates. Ended up with a couple of pieces I’m looking forward to play with, and also added a few pieces to my wish list once I can figure out how to utilize them.

Prop and accessories are things that are acquired over time, and I’m always on the look out. Just like locations, textures, and other backgrounds.

Other things going through my head? Well, I’ve been playing with Photoshop, a never-ending journey of discovery. I watched a video clip on the NAPP site and figured out all the different options the brush tool has that I didn’t know about, such as scatter, size, opacity, and color jitter, etc. Not something that is needed on a layer mask, but more on the design part of Photoshop. I’ve been playing with the design elements a lot more in recent weeks, both in terms of coming up with images that mix photography and design elements, and also just to use in everyday presentation. I think there’s a benefit of dabbling in design, even without intention of becoming a designer. It trains the eye a lot more in creative composition rather than just seeing beauty and pointing the lens at it, and hopefully leads to being more active in realizing visual inspirations.

This goes to a point I commented on the other day on Rick’s blog: I think there are a few stages to photographic development (well, there are many such illustrations – such as George Barr’s skill levels). But for the purpose of making my point here on design: At stage 0, we’re starting out, and are in spray’n’pray shooting mode (one stop above ‘P’ on your camera dial). We don’t know yet how to make a good image, but we hope to capture one. At stage 1, we’ve trained our eye and we become more selective. We say ‘I’ve seen that', or ‘This is boring’. We know to distinguish a good shot from a bad before pressing the button and start exercising restraint. At stage 2, we actually start having visual concepts that we want to create before we take the shot. We change the camera angle, we bring in props, we seek out locations, etc. all in an effort to create that shot we have in our head. And finally at stage 3, we do what we did in stage 2 all the time, except there’s a lot more consistency. In fact so much consistency that others can make out our visual voice, see our style even without knowing who shot it.

The following image used some of the newly discovered brush options on the separator:

I used a calligraphy brush tip with a wider spacing, a size jitter, and a few other dynamics to configure the brush. Then I drew a straight line path at each margin, then using the stroke function to follow the path with the brush. And the brush doesn’t have any color, it’s actually painting a layer mask to reveal an underlying grunge texture that I loaded into the background layer.

Credits top: Kimberly (model), Sheila (make-up)
Credits bottom: Carlee (model), Shyn (make-up & hair)