Taylor

Tim Kamppinen

These are some shots of my friend's daughter that I took the other day. We set up in their garage with a black sheet for a backdrop, one SB-600, an umbrella, and a tinfoil reflector. I'm just getting into portrait photography but I've been very pleased so far with what can be done with just one light, though I'm planning on getting another as soon as I can. Here are the results, let me know what you think:

#1


#2


#3


#4


#5


#6


#7


#8


#9

Darren Troy C

I like them. 6 & 8 are really weird looking...not sure what happened here. Can you post some sort of drawing/layout of your light and backdrop set-up?....I'd be interested to know (see first hand) your positioning for all the equipment involved.

Scott_Quier

I'm not liking 6 or 8 at all.

As for the rest - they are very good as far as you've taken them. I think, one more step would have greatly improved them. You have used an aluminium reflector for fill. A second one, behind Taylor and throwing some light onto the top corner of her head would have gone a long, long, long way to seperating her dark hear from the background. For example, in #1, if you had had a reflector beyond Taylor, high and to camera left, bouncing some of the splill from the flash back onto her hair - too cool I'd be thinking!
An even larger one, in the much the same position, would have suppled a rim-lighting effect, which would have done wonders in seperating her dark jacket from the background.

Specific comments:
#1 - Love her quiet expression. I'm thinking this young lady is a natural. I would, however, think I would have liked to have seen the head tilt the other direction - more like what you have in #5. Exposure looks very good. I might have moved the reflector a bit closer to her to fill the shadow side a touch - but that may be just personal preference.

#3 - Lighting is quite nice. You have filled the shadow side quite nicely!

#4 - This is some excellent loop lighting though the lighting ratio is a bit higher than I would have elected.

#9 - Lighting ratio is higher than I would have selected. The Rembrandt technique (almost cross-lighting) is a little harsh as well. Would have been great for a guy, especially an older guy, but I'm thinking not quite on for a young lady.

Bottom line - WOWbow - this is just one more wonderful example of what can be done with just one light and a little DIY attitude. I can really appreciate what you've done here and the effort you've gone to in extending the capability of using just one light source. Well done, indeed.

Of course, it did hinder your effrot at all that Taylor is a quite attractive young lady:D

Tim Kamppinen

Idlewild wrote:

I like them. 6 & 8 are really weird looking...not sure what happened here. Can you post some sort of drawing/layout of your light and backdrop set-up?....I'd be interested to know (see first hand) your positioning for all the equipment involved.

6 & 8 were done with the flash behind her and the key light coming from a reflector. It was a technique I was experimenting with since I didn't have another flash for rim light... it did end up looking sort of cut-and-paste because I had to clean up the stray and blown out hair in post. It worked much better on this self portrait, mainly because of the different quality of my hair:


I posted a thread about this here: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=105680


Scott, thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I agree that more separation light would really make an improvement... I'll definitely try another reflector next time around.