Yet another SP...

Zarathustra

This one took about 3 hours to get right. About an hour and a half in PS smoothing the wrinkles in the backdrop due to the fact that I'm not bright enough to figure out that it would have only taken about ten minutes to iron it. :dunno Really makes me wish that at least one of the smileys had a bicycle helmet.



This one was second attempt. I've got a mind to go back out and reshoot it with the ambient cranked up a bit more so that the lighting isn't so overdramatic. It was booger freezingly cold and I'd already taken two spills carrying my camera and flash (not happiness) and just kinda wanted to move on though.

lisap

I think I kept trying to scroll up to see the head in the first one

I really like the colours in the first one and how the light falls in from your left side. (Oh, and I find a steamer works WAY better for removing the wrinkles than the iron -- discovered after my arm almost fell off ironing my very first backdrop for a REALLY long time before hubby went out and bought me the steamer to stop all of my cursing!)

-- Lisa P.

Zarathustra

Great idea! Yet another thing to add to The List Of Equipment I Need. My fiancee thanks you immensely!

divamum

Zarathustra wrote:

Great idea! Yet another thing to add to The List Of Equipment I Need. My fiancee thanks you immensely!

Steamer = A Great Thing, but you can also fake steaming with many irons (just hold it upright and use the "steam" button to try and get it to zap some out , but watch for splatters!). Downy wrinkle release may also work (although perhaps not on a painted backdrop as that one seems to be)

I kinda like the Headless Horseman there! It's a fun concept.

Zarathustra

Thanks for looking, Divamum! Actually it is just a black sheet that I shot a red gelled strobe at. I'm a heavy handed Photoshop n00b so that is why it looks like that (texture with the Healing Brush? Who needs that? ). Apparently, trying to embed a smiley in parentheses just leads to a double-chinned normal smiley. Who knew?

The headless thing was a pain since I'm not a big fan of cropping all of those pixels that I paid good money for. Getting the distance and pose proper in camera in my 10'x10' corner of the living room that I can appropriate when Kristi is out was a wee bit on the maddening side. It was fun to do, though.

Oh, and Lisap, I mentioned the steamer thing to Kristi and it is the first piece of photographic equipment that I'm not worried about ending up in my nether regions! Thank you for the small victory!

speedsk8r

The first shot i love not sure what the ball meant,but the lighting is also amazing.What kind of stick is that.

Zarathustra

It is just a walking stick. I used to carry it when I was hiking back when I lived in Colorado. I titled it "Modern Mage" and the blue ball was was supposed to be a slightly more interesting crystal ball than one made of clear glass. I thought the blue would go well with the purple tie and slightly red background. The lighting was actually really easy. I had a strobe that was gelled red at camera right and pointed at the backdrop. Another strobe with a 24" softbox at camera right for the key, slightly in front of my position and pointed quite a bit towards the camera to keep from spilling on the backdrop. For fill I had an on-camera flash pointed at the ceiling. I shoot Sony so the only way to fire all three of my lights is with the flash on the camera so I use it for fill like that quite often. The strobes are the Interfit EX150 two light kit which is dirt cheap at $300.

Anyways, thanks for looking, and thanks for commenting Speedsk8r!

mpaulie

First thing that came to mind when I saw the first one was that would be a portrait a magician would have taken. Pretty sweet!

Zarathustra

Thanks for the comment, MPaulie!