Working on a specific style
Greensquared
Registered Users Posts: 2,115 Major grins
I'm working on this 50s Hollywood glam style and would love any feedback. Thank! Emily
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Emily
Psalm 62:5-6
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Comments
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....
These are the shiz. Nice work.
D90 + D50 Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM
Nikon 55-300 mm f4.5-5.6G ED DX AF-S VR
Landscapes, Sport and Buildings are my bag.
Chris White Cheltenham England
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky
I'm here to learn so please feel free to give me constructive criticism to help me become the photographer I desire to be.
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.
Jeff
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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
#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
I've been studying film and I agree this is where sensors fall short.
Thanks Nik!
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!