Working on a specific style

Greensquared

I'm working on this 50s Hollywood glam style and would love any feedback. Thank! Emily

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reyvee61

I love, love, love one and three....
Not just your lighting and conversion but your models look so 50's era (photography and styles).....
I have a great interest in emulating styles as well from Victorian Era such as Julia Margaret Cameron for instance....

indiegirl

It's Emily! It's Emily! Hi, old friend!

These are the shiz. Nice work.

Chris02

really like your shots, what software did you use?

David_S85

One and three have "the look" but the lighting is a tad harsh. Overall, great job on the set. Can you briefly explain some of the steps involved to recreate the 50's glam look vs. a conventional modern head shot portrait?

Mark1616

Fantastic, it's great to see something that isn't the same old same old (well OK so these are old style, but you know what I mean). Another person interested to know how you did these.

jeffreaux2

Hi Emily,

Nice to see you 'round.

I am a huge fan of 60s era wedding photography, so I can see what attracts you to these types of shots. It's pretty cool that a simple headshot can be dated by the style of it. The lighting, the color, the hair and make-up....all playing a part.

So in your stylizing....keep that old gear in mind as well.

I began using film again as an aside to my digital photography. I'm using an old Yashica Mat Twin Lens Reflex medium format camera from the late sixties/early seventies. It's been quite the journey. One thing that shooting film has reminded me of is that the exposure latitude on film seems much wider than that of digital. Details in the darkest of shadows and brightest highlights.....but....the midtones are where it really shines. Smooth transitions across all that latitude. It can be tough to emulate with a digital file.

My best tries have come by creating at least 3 curves layers. One for shadows, one for midtones and one for highlights.....and carefully adjusting to grab as much detail as I can in the highlights and shadows.....and midtones. Then blend the layers to bring each out where they need to be using masks. It sounds painstaking, but can be fairly quick once you've done a few...and of course if its an image you REALLY want to work on then it's a breeze. I said at least 3 layers. It can easily be double that!:D


In any event, your lighting looks very appropriate....especially in 2 and 3. I think the hairlight adds much to those two. Are you using a dish up front?

Images 1 and 4 suffer, IMO, from too much contrast. The film that was used back then would have shown details in most of those dark areas.

Greensquared

Hi all! (Hi Jesse!)

Thanks for all of the great feedback. Jeff, what you're saying makes total sense. I'm going to try playing with the multiple curve layers for sure.

My current setup is limited. I am using a large walk-in closet, wrapped in a black backdrop that is pinned to the upper shelves (note to self #1: forfeit my office to make a larger studio space to work in). I have two cheap studio lights that the built-in wireless slave works only when the first light is dialed up high enough, pointed in the right direction, the planets are aligned and it darn well feels like it (note to self #2: save $500 and invest in pocket wizards). The lights are typically bare, with just barn doors, or with a snoot that I may or may not add a honeycomb to (note to self #3: get a dish).

I spend about an hour to an hour and a half doing hair and makeup, using a YouTube link as a rough guide.

My model is sitting on a stool in the closet with the lights at very close proximity.

For post processing, I open the image in Photoshop and first run Anthropics Portrait Professional on it for skin smoothing and eye adjustments (lighten iris, sharpen eyes, birghten whites). Then I smooth the skin on the chest manually using whatever quick and dirty method I can. I convert to black and white using a gradient map method (if anyone wants full details on that, let me know). Then I run the free Optikverve labs software "glamour" filter on it's own layer and reduce the opacity to whatever looks good (usually around 25-35%). I sharpen the eyes a bit more, play with the curves, add a bit of a vignette to the bottom and tweak whatever else is needed. That's about it really.

Emily

Art Scott

Great shots...instead of spending $500 on PW's get an Alien Bee (AB 800 X2 - just a tad over $500 unless you buy used ) and a set of ebay flash triggers (16 channel...been using mine for over 2 yrs no mis fires or no fires) this link takes you to some just like mine, the only extra I had to buy was a pc to pc cable to match the receiver to my SB900's.

Nikolai

+1 on ##1 and 3
#2 has more like a film noir look (and I'd kill the hair light cause it makes your subject look bald)
#4 doesn't do anything for me, very bland, sorry, not an interesting lighting pattern

reyvee61

I began using film again as an aside to my digital photography. I'm using an old Yashica Mat Twin Lens Reflex medium format camera from the late sixties/early seventies. It's been quite the journey. One thing that shooting film has reminded me of is that the exposure latitude on film seems much wider than that of digital. Details in the darkest of shadows and brightest highlights.....but....the midtones are where it really shines. Smooth transitions across all that latitude. It can be tough to emulate with a digital file.

I've been studying film and I agree this is where sensors fall short.

Greensquared

Nikolai wrote: »

+1 on ##1 and 3
#2 has more like a film noir look (and I'd kill the hair light cause it makes your subject look bald)
#4 doesn't do anything for me, very bland, sorry, not an interesting lighting pattern

Thanks Nik!

Greensquared

Art Scott wrote: »

Great shots...instead of spending $500 on PW's get an Alien Bee (AB 800 X2 - just a tad over $500 unless you buy used ) and a set of ebay flash triggers (16 channel...been using mine for over 2 yrs no mis fires or no fires) this link takes you to some just like mine, the only extra I had to buy was a pc to pc cable to match the receiver to my SB900's.

Thanks Art! I'll look into that.

Bryce Wilson

I like two a lot except for the hair light drawing attention to the lack of hair on top of his head. I also like 4 but would like to see a clearer outline in her hair where it falls completely into the shadows.

What bothers me about the other two is the shadow under the nose. "Hollywood Lighting" from that era pretty much always had the "butterfly" directly under the nose without it sliding off to one side or the other. However your light setup does indeed do a nice job of highlighting the cheekbones!

Greensquared

Bryce Wilson wrote: »

I like two a lot except for the hair light drawing attention to the lack of hair on top of his head. I also like 4 but would like to see a clearer outline in her hair where it falls completely into the shadows.

What bothers me about the other two is the shadow under the nose. "Hollywood Lighting" from that era pretty much always had the "butterfly" directly under the nose without it sliding off to one side or the other. However your light setup does indeed do a nice job of highlighting the cheekbones!

Good points Bryce. Thank you!