Teal on Gold

Nikolai

Sometimes I shoot them clothed rofl



Canon 5DMkII, Canon EF 24-105L/4
ISO 100, 1/200s at f/4.0
Titan Sidekick shooting stand, Acratech V2 ballhead, Canon Remote cable
4 AB800 (2 2'x4' grided softboxes, 2 golden gels), 1 ProFoto Compact 600R with 7' octabox, PocketWizards
Minor adjustments in ACR and PS CS5.

And yes, she's really that slim! :deal
Enjoy! :thumb

reyvee61

Nik, I hate you....JK.......

You rock with the lighting!
And yes, of course...this is awesome!

CASowers

Nikolai wrote: »

Sometimes I shoot them clothed

And they look just as awesome...I've commented in previous posts about natural light and my overall fear of strobes...Continuing to see the amazing work by you and others drives home the point that it's time to open things up a bit.

codiac2600

Lighting on the model is good but that background is uber distracting. With all the attention to detail it just takes so much away from the image to see a wrinkly and sloppy background.

Nikolai

@reyvee61:
Thanks :-)

@CASowers:
I'm glad you're overcoming your fears of studio lighting. It's a great fun, and I wouldn't miss it!

@codiac2600:
Thank you for the picky eye!
FWIW, I HATE super smooth look of paper and I cherish the natural texture of fabric. I shoot mostly nudity exactly for the same reason: it's natural and it has nothing to hide. "Sloppy" means I didn't pay attention. Believe me, I did. It would be no problem for me whatsoever to make it a huge homegenious golden void; in fact, it would take less time than it took me to type this sentence. It's a matter of choice.
Yet I'm sorry you can't enjoy this image the way I have...

codiac2600

Nikolai wrote: »

@codiac2600:
Thank you for the picky eye!
FWIW, I HATE super smooth look of paper and I cherish the natural texture of fabric. I shoot mostly nudity exactly for the same reason: it's natural and it has nothing to hide. "Sloppy" means I didn't pay attention. Believe me, I did. It would be no problem for me whatsoever to make it a huge homegenious golden void; in fact, it would take less time than it took me to type this sentence. It's a matter of choice.
Yet I'm sorry you can't enjoy this image the way I have...

I can understand it from the perspective given just odd seeing such a clean model with great lines then to see wrinkles by her feet and in the background. I've never been a fan of paper myself and swear by vinyl and diamond cloth.

This may be more-so of an observation of the work provided as well as your other work as everyone has a taste and preference to their work and how they view others work, but in many of your works it seems like there is so much detail taken to light the subject but then a chaos of fabric when in studio. A sort of pebble tossed into the calm water.

In some images I truly believe it works, but in others I feel that it definitely takes away from the image. In the image above a crop above the knee and below the dress would look stunning as the simple ripples in the fabric would finish the image off perfectly. As we go further down we have light fall off and harder wrinkles then when the floor comes into play the harder wrinkles formed from the model moving on the backdrop really make the lower part of the image distracting. Maybe I'm somewhat crazy, which most would say I am, but just an honest opinion from someone in the same field.

briandelion

Beautiful color and lighting! Liquid is what comes to mind, like she was poured. One small nitpick (and it may be my monitor): I see what seems to be a slight cast shadow on the bkgd drape to the right of her raised arm.

adbsgicom

Nice shot. I've just started playing with muslins and been wondering about the floor part in particular. Good to see that there is consensus on the wrinkles
I was trying to piece together the 5 lights and what was doing what.
1. Octa about 30-degrees CL
2. ABs w/ gridded SB's CL & CR at 90 degrees (and aimed a bit back) for the rim lights
3. ABs w/ gels on the b/g

My main question is about the color of the b/g and the gel effect. The floor looks darker, but of the same color as the main b/g; so are the gels there to prevent wash-out of the color on the b/g since you have the b/g lit fairly strongly?

Nikolai

codiac2600 wrote: »

I can understand it from the perspective given just odd seeing such a clean model with great lines then to see wrinkles by her feet and in the background. I've never been a fan of paper myself and swear by vinyl and diamond cloth.

This may be more-so of an observation of the work provided as well as your other work as everyone has a taste and preference to their work and how they view others work, but in many of your works it seems like there is so much detail taken to light the subject but then a chaos of fabric when in studio. A sort of pebble tossed into the calm water.

In some images I truly believe it works, but in others I feel that it definitely takes away from the image. In the image above a crop above the knee and below the dress would look stunning as the simple ripples in the fabric would finish the image off perfectly. As we go further down we have light fall off and harder wrinkles then when the floor comes into play the harder wrinkles formed from the model moving on the backdrop really make the lower part of the image distracting. Maybe I'm somewhat crazy, which most would say I am, but just an honest opinion from someone in the same field.

Chris, thank you again for careful verbalization of your line of thoughts. I do appreciate it.

Nikolai

briandelion wrote: »

Beautiful color and lighting! Liquid is what comes to mind, like she was poured. One small nitpick (and it may be my monitor): I see what seems to be a slight cast shadow on the bkgd drape to the right of her raised arm.

Thank you!
As for the cast shadow: I don't see anything suspicious... Maybe fabric imperfection?

divamum

Nik -

I stand in awe of your lighting - the beautiful highlights on her limbs are fantastic; plus, the shine of the fabric of her dress matches the gleam of her skin and is really beautiful.

BUT... some nits in this one for me. Her face kind of gets lost in it all for me. My eye went first to her right arm, then her left elbow, then her thigh and then her face, where I landed first on her nostrils. Also, I'm not sure about the blue-green of the dress with the gold/ochre of the bg - the colours seem to me to conflict rather than complement; I think I'd probably need to look at a colour-wheel to figure out why they don't quite work for me, but something just seems to be at odds there. (Of course, it could just be my personal taste, too, and as such completely unimportant!)

In any case, you know I admire your skill, Nik, so I hope you won't take my comments amiss!

Nikolai

adbsgicom wrote: »

My main question is about the color of the b/g and the gel effect. The floor looks darker, but of the same color as the main b/g; so are the gels there to prevent wash-out of the color on the b/g since you have the b/g lit fairly strongly?

Thank you!
The floor color is PS-ed.
I could've easily make it as bright as the bg itself (and sometimes I do) but it would look less natural (or "cohesive" ;-).

Mitchell

For me, this is by far your best work. The model and colors are stunning. A very languid pose lit very nicely to accentuate all of the curves. Nicely don.

Nikolai

Mitchell wrote: »

For me, this is by far your best work. The model and colors are stunning. A very languid pose lit very nicely to accentuate all of the curves. Nicely don.

Thank you Mitch!

Nikolai

divamum wrote: »

Nik -

I stand in awe of your lighting - the beautiful highlights on her limbs are fantastic; plus, the shine of the fabric of her dress matches the gleam of her skin and is really beautiful.

BUT... some nits in this one for me. Her face kind of gets lost in it all for me. My eye went first to her right arm, then her left elbow, then her thigh and then her face, where I landed first on her nostrils. Also, I'm not sure about the blue-green of the dress with the gold/ochre of the bg - the colours seem to me to conflict rather than complement; I think I'd probably need to look at a colour-wheel to figure out why they don't quite work for me, but something just seems to be at odds there. (Of course, it could just be my personal taste, too, and as such completely unimportant!)

In any case, you know I admire your skill, Nik, so I hope you won't take my comments amiss!

Thank you for the C&C!
I know, I know, the venerable "do not shoot up the nostrils" rule...
In this case the "tall and proud" pose kinda justifies the raised chin (IMHO, at least), so I personally count this as a minor pain for a major gain - afterall, it's not a close-up portrait, but a full height shot.
I would start with legs, go up her right arm, observe shoulder/chest area, continue through her left arm to her lovely eyes... and by this time I'd be already completely consumed by her body and pose, so I'd free-fall down (HALO style) to her feet and begin the journey again...

As for the color match (or lack of thereof) - I didn't want to go all teal/green for this, and also didn't want to go with the black bg (it was a spec shoot, long story). Out of all possible colors golden yellow/orange seemed like a solid choice and I went with it. For me it brings something royal, egyptian, nefertitian... But I understand that tastes differ...

divamum

I totally see what you mean on the Nefertiti front - I thought of that, in fact - but her chin dropped juuussst slightly would have made all the difference for me, especially since I think it would have opened her eyes out a bit more. Her jawline is so perfectly sculpted! I'm still gawping over the sense of "glow" about it though (not as in PS glow, but as in skin+light+shine-on-fabric) - it's masterful lighting.

Nikolai

divamum wrote: »

I totally see what you mean on the Nefertiti front - I thought of that, in fact - but her chin dropped juuussst slightly would have made all the difference for me, especially since I think it would have opened her eyes out a bit more. Her jawline is so perfectly sculpted! I'm still gawping over the sense of "glow" about it though (not as in PS glow, but as in skin+light+shine-on-fabric) - it's masterful lighting.

Thanks again!
I think "glow" is a good reference point for this series. I may enhance it slightly when it comes to production...
The latter scares the living daylights out of me, as I shot about 2,200 frames over the weekend with about 95% keeper rate ( for this particular project), so I have a LOT to process... :hide

Albert Dickson

Nik,
This is brilliant. I would love to see your light setup on this. 5 lights? Realy brilliant.

Nikolai

Albert Dickson wrote: »

Nik,
This is brilliant. I would love to see your light setup on this. 5 lights? Realy brilliant.

Thank you! Setup attached.

Albert Dickson

Lovely! Thanks!

Nikolai

Albert Dickson wrote: »

Lovely! Thanks!

You're welcome!

divamum

So (to see if I'm reading the diagram right):

- the two lights on the bg, flagged from model and camera with barn doors to add direction
- two gridded sb's to rear providing rim lighting on arms and leg (set brighter than the front light?)
- gridded sb behind and above camera as fill or as key?

Nikolai

divamum wrote: »

So (to see if I'm reading the diagram right):

- the two lights on the bg, flagged from model and camera with barn doors to add direction
- two gridded sb's to rear providing rim lighting on arms and leg (set brighter than the front light?)
- gridded sb behind and above camera as fill or as key?

Yeah, pretty much.

Main/fill is set to f/4, rims are set to f/5.6, gels - about same power as rims, but their output is very different due to the dark fabic and gels. I'd say the end result on the bg is about f/2.8.

The barndoors I find fairly useless unless they're "boxed". Once you start opening them, the amount of (gelled) light that splills through the corners can runin anything. So while I keep them there (just in case) I had them fairly open.

The real heros here are to the two tall flags (gobos on the diagram). They block the model from the gels and they also block the camera from the rims, thus avoiding flare effect.

HTH

zoomer

Pretty girl, looks like fun .
For me the background overpowers the shot. The color is not ideal and also the background is to bright.
The girls face needs to be brighter in relation to the background and also to her legs, my eye is pulled all over the photo except not to her face which is where it should be guided first.
Not loving the pose, she looks confident but not natural or relaxed in the pose.
Do you have any others of her?

Nikolai

zoomer wrote: »

Pretty girl, looks like fun .
For me the background overpowers the shot. The color is not ideal and also the background is to bright.
The girls face needs to be brighter in relation to the background and also to her legs, my eye is pulled all over the photo except not to her face which is where it should be guided first.
Not loving the pose, she looks confident but not natural or relaxed in the pose.

Thank you for your C&C!
FWIW her face was *not* the primary subject for this series ;-). Relaxed was also not in the spec.

Do you have any others of her?

I do have about 300 more of her (and 1,900 more of others). But I'm already in violation on my contract since I wasn't supposed to publish any of this work, so, sorry, this is all you guys gonna see out of these shoots. (unless you're local and make a beer stop at my place )

anonymouscuban

Nikolai wrote: »

Thank you for your C&C!
FWIW her face was *not* the primary subject for this series ;-). Relaxed was also not in the spec.

I do have about 300 more of her (and 1,900 more of others). But I'm already in violation on my contract since I wasn't supposed to publish any of this work, so, sorry, this is all you guys gonna see out of these shoots. (unless you're local and make a beer stop at my place )

Are you supplying the beer?

Nikolai

anonymouscuban wrote: »

Are you supplying the beer?

No silly, you are, I'm providing the entertainment :-) rofl

kdog

Mitchell wrote: »

For me, this is by far your best work.

Kinda what I'm thinking. This is awesome, Nik. I like the processing on it too; were you trying something new?

Cheers,
-joel

Nikolai

kdog wrote: »

Kinda what I'm thinking. This is awesome, Nik. I like the processing on it too; were you trying something new?

Cheers,
-joel

Thanks Joel!
This is virtually non-processed, at least in all key areas.
As this is a high-volume job, I knew I won't be able to go pixel-peeping for two thousand plus images, so I had to make sure they're all good SOOC and all I need is some cropping and maybe some basic global adujstments (like curves, etc., which I can do in large batches). My intention is to do all the processing in ACR. I only quickly launched PS for this one before posting since I did expect some level of scrutiny here.

Hackbone

Congrats on a great shot especially straight out of the camera. Imagine when you get a file like this what one is able to do with it without trying to get it exposed first.

Nikolai

Hackbone wrote: »

Congrats on a great shot especially straight out of the camera. Imagine when you get a file like this what one is able to do with it without trying to get it exposed first.

Thank you, Charles!