"Hollywood" shots (C&C welcome)

divamum

C&C welcomed!

First three from a shoot I did this afternoon. A friend is just wacky about 40s fashion and film, so we did a shoot inspired by the look of Hollywood portraits. We didn't copy any directly, but I was going for that kind of mood one way or another.

Shot with a 7d, 420ex, 430ex and assorted modifiers. Grid and small softbox for the harder light; Photek softliter for the last one.

1 She has kind of a Rita Hayworth thing going on, and had a great sofa for us to use



2 And a red velvet chair in the shape of a shoe - the back really IS that straight - can't decide if I like it, or if it looks too vertical. Also, the shadow from the arm - I don't mind it (and it's very "in style" for a lot of movie-star potraiture from the period), but is it a dealbreaker here?



2a Cropped and tilted


3 And in a somewhat different style.... (with the shoe chair turned 90 degrees)

tropico

Lovely shots, but it looks like her hand is in a very awkward position in nr. 2. She looks uncomfortable.

Other than that I really like these!

VayCayMom

#1 TAKES THE CAKE! at least for me. I am a woman so take this the wrong way but I think that tiny peek of bra is soooooo sexy! I love in the color shots how you brought out her hair and her eyes. Nice job, I bet she loved it !

reyvee61

Great to see you using the flash units for hair-lights and all.....
Love the first one, just a wee bit "hot" on her skin though.
Two and three I'm a wee bit bothered by the shadows cast by her arm and those under her chin.
The last one I really like but for some reason her pose looks too forced to me.

I'm liking what I see overall, job well done!

kidzmom

WOW, DIVA..these are FUN! Love #2 and #3 and the angle and feel in #1 is awesome (great conversion too). The hairlight is super in 2 and 3 (especially with the color of her hair)..really adds some pop to the photo! I'm jealous of your awesome studio lighting setups!

Bsimon

#1!! Wow, you hit the desired 40's look perfectly with that one!

angevin1

Great work with the Lighting Diva! Did you finally get those lights to behave as directed?

photos

1. Sofa Shot: Lovely! Critical; shoes off and toes together and tucked. This shot as is looks like it happened, which I think brings cred to the shot.

2. This Chair could prob work with it's back on the floor and the Diva-Friend laying on it as she is. Otherwise she has an arm going vertical, looks unnatural.

3. the crop and tilt validates my thoughts somewhat ( see 2 above).

4. Her bum appears to be all-the-way-back into the seat, causing her to lean forward due to the straight-back chair. 4" further towards the edge and she'd look more comfortable.

Shadows. I don't think any of the shadows I see distract. I do have a different take on it than others. Shadows are the alter-aspect of light-play.

Having pretty friends to play with makes for a very lovely set of photos!

HTH,

divamum

Thanks for the comments and feedback everybody! Working through the set, so there will probably be some more later - these were fun to do

Re posing - she was REALLY hard to pose and gets unbelievably stiff. She's actually like that IRL as herself not in front of the camera, so we were fighting natural tendencies... Every once in a while she'd relax her hands (she does this "drinking tea" pinkie thing I had to keep reminding her about) and let her forehead go, but it was tricky to get her to work with that. She wasn't tense... she's just like that :giggle

@Kelly - "studio lighting setup"!!!! :lol . You're joking. I have two discontinued, 2ndhand Canon flashes and mostly home-made modifiers. My Photek softliter and reflector set/stand are about the only "real" lighting gear I have! These were all taken in her living room - in fact, one of the frustrations was that my bg wasn't big enough and I'm going to be doing a LOT of bg cloning to make some of the red dress shots useable. Srsly - while I love having the portability of a speedlite setup, it is exactly that, not studio gear (or space)!

@reyvee I'll check the #'s on brightness - I lifted it in post so it doesn't have to be that hot. I think I was just going for the 40s high contrast look...

@Trudy - I love the bra too... but she wants me to clone it out! Poo... I wish I'd actually encouraged her to let more of it show - I think it's way cool that it matches the sofa :giggle

@Tom - the feet!! I was SOOOOO annoyed when I saw that. I kept telling her to keep them together (and she wanted the shoes - since they're so cool, I was happy to oblige) but they'd move almost as soon as I'd placed them. I didn't mention them in my op because I wanted to see if they jumped out at anybody else as much as they did to me (I knew they would with you sharp-eyed folks, but one always lives in hope )

And yeah, the lights mostly behaved. I still can't figure out how to use the popup on the 7d as fill, but I'll get it in time - the interface is just a little confusing and I haven't played with it enough. But as far as hairlights and using very controlled, harder light (instead of the softer look, which has been more my "natural habitat") I was pleased. I haven't got it entirely fluid yet and still can't 100% visualize what I"ll get, but this is the closest I've been to knowing what i'm doing, so the practice definitely paid off

misterb

#1 is the keeper- and I agree with the previous poster that said the "peek-a-boo" of the bra is sexy, and I'm male.

angevin1

divamum wrote: »

And yeah, the lights mostly behaved. I still can't figure out how to use the popup on the 7d as fill, but I'll get it in time - the interface is just a little confusing and I haven't played with it enough. But as far as hairlights and using very controlled, harder light (instead of the softer look, which has been more my "natural habitat") I was pleased. I haven't got it entirely fluid yet and still can't 100% visualize what I"ll get, but this is the closest I've been to knowing what i'm doing, so the practice definitely paid off

I'd like to keep up on this because it is only a matter of time before I start loading up on flashes for my Canon...and will need all the help I can get!

divamum

I believe the 580ex/II's use a similar interface to the 7ds wireless controller, so if that's the route you're going.... we can compare notes!! Canon flashes perform beautifully once you figure out how to talk to them, but you do have to learn their (not always obvious) language .... Frankly, the external STE2 is easier to use because you just press buttons instead of dig into menus, but it can only control two groups, so the 7d/580ex have the edge there.

divamum

Interesting statisic from a couple of sources: the Hollywood studios employed more retouch artists than photographers. I can believe it!

A few more from Sunday's shoot - C&C always welcomed!!

4 More red dress. I wish it hadn't wrinkled, but the pose seems less uncomfortable to me - does it work better? Pose aside, I'm not sure which I love more - all those reds, or the unbelievable light the Photek produces... I had NO IDEA I could do that with lowly speedlights.



5. More of the Rita Hayworth-y kinda thang ... in colour and BW



5a BW


6 This reminded me of that "Celebrity at Home" kind of shot you used to see - her house is so in period that I thought it would be fun to include the bg in a couple. You can see here how she lifts/wrinkles her forehead - I toned it down as much as I could, but I think I probably need to go further. In a more naturalistic style it probably would be a tosser, but in this, I kinda want to make it work.

kidzmom

These new ones are great!!!! LOVE them. The studio setup you have is about 10x better than mine (=none!), lol! I'm still jealous! I bet she was just thrilled with these!

divamum

Thanks, Kelly. She hasn't seen them yet, but she usually HATES pictures of herself - she genuinely doesn't seem to realise how gorgeous she is!

I'm still working through them and, in fact, am trying to figure out what to do with this one. I love her eyes and the light in this one, but the BG is a hot mess (I thought I could clone it down more easily than is proving to be the case, sadly - I really got ploughed by my bg being too small for this shoot). I started playing with textures, though, and kind of liked this since it made the shapes in the bg look kind of like stone. Is it a complete non-starter? If so, I'll scrap the idea and just work on improving my cloning skills , but feedback welcomed.....

(whoops - against sm's black I see a spot I missed - that's fixable - it's feedback on whether the concept even works in principle I'm trying to get feedback on....)

Scott_Quier

MG - loving the shots. The last one...



just completly rocks. The lighting is so spot on!

However, I would like to see some others of that pose as I'm not really loving her facial expression.

sweet caroline

1, 5, and 6 I like. The ones with the hair light, I find the frizzy red hair distracting. Nice lighting! You are so good at capturing beautiful eyes.

Caroline

reyvee61

New additions are great, speedlights are fantistic
I really like the first one

divamum

Thanks Reyvee, Caroline and Scott. Caroline, you're right - I should do some flyaway cloning, methinks!

Scott - would you believe that was the ONLY shot of that pose I got? I have no idea why I only took the one... Getting expressions out of her was really tough - she does this thing where she lifts her forehead and crinkles it really obviously. I did my best to work it out, but the remnants of which are still visible in the one you like....

Thanks again, everybody! I'm not sure I've completely nailed this multi-light thing, but we had fun playing with it

ETA: Whee! I was wrong - I DID get a couple of others with that light setup and, while the pose isn't quite the same, there are a couple others to look at (note to self: when using filters in LR, rememeber to look at UNRATED shots as well as rated... :bash)

Blurmore

I think 1 is your strongest shot for vintage cred. It like almost all the rest is broad lit, not a huge deal on the down angle shots which make her face look thin anyway, but for authenticity's sake...they should be short lit. Hollywood photographers were sticklers about their beauty dishes and short lighting. 3 is short lit, and my favorite shot, but maybe I'd elevate her chin a little bit, or shoot down on her a touch. Maybe have her lay her head back against the chair, something about the angle makes her forehead look big and her chin weak, and she really isn't that out of proportion. Good job, I have an ortho preset I downloaded that would make these B&W's REALLY 40's.

divamum

Ooo... thanks Blur! A bit of googling and an Ortho preset is now mine

Yeah, I did somehow manage to go broad with all of these simply because of where it was possible to set lights and position her. Because she's slim I didn't worry about it too much, but you're right - short would have gone further to the style AND it's something I sometimes forget to retain as people move around and/or I reset lights multiple times, especially on location where I'm not in my own space where I'm a little more routined.

I wish I could read faces like you and your esteemed colleagues do. I'm getting more comfortable with telling people what to do with thier arms and legs for posing, and setting lights and all the other stuff, but I find it hard to read the planes of a face until AFTER I've reviewed the shots ... by which time it's too late! Are there any good sources of info for learning more about that? I feel there must be some rules of thumb, I just don't know what they are yet............ :giggle

Thanks for chiming in!

divamum

Just one more

I know, her fingers c/should have been less splayed, and for true 40s short lighting would've been better, but I'm really happy with this conversion... THANKS for the tip on that preset, Blurmore - it's a great look, and I suspect I'll be using it whenever I can, because I love it!!