Some Fighter Portraits at the Gym

Zerodog

I did some quick portraits for a few fighters at a local MMA gym for an upcoming event that I am shooting. What do you think? New WM too. Hows that lookin? This is Koffi. He is an unbelievable athlete.



Added some water. Next time we need to use oil. I think the water is too.....watery
#2


#3

MDalby

Shot #3 is the best facial expression. Why not better lighting?

jmphotocraft

I like the lighting on 2 and 3 very much. I only wish it was more "Rembrandt" on his face, and not just one-sided. But I certainly know this isn't always easy to pull off in the moment.

anonymouscuban

These are good. Couple of suggestions...

First, use something called glycerin. Mix it with water and spray it on. Looks great and like sweat. It's not as messy as water too.

Second, if you have three lights, try use two rim lights and one direct above camera. The rim lights, position them behind, to either side so the light wraps around to just about the outer corners of his eyes. The light above camera should be just a hair dimmer than the rim. Play with that setup if you can.

Here is a self portrait I did while playing with this light setup. Hope you don't mind me adding the pic. Let me know if you do and I will remove it.:

Hackbone

Love all of them especially the lighting. It goes right with the MMA image. Great job!!

Zerodog

anonymouscuban wrote: »

These are good. Couple of suggestions...

First, use something called glycerin. Mix it with water and spray it on. Looks great and like sweat. It's not as messy as water too.

Second, if you have three lights, try use two rim lights and one direct above camera. The rim lights, position them behind, to either side so the light wraps around to just about the outer corners of his eyes. The light above camera should be just a hair dimmer than the rim. Play with that setup if you can.

Here is a self portrait I did while playing with this light setup. Hope you don't mind me adding the pic. Let me know if you do and I will remove it.:

Thank you very much for the ideas. I will need to give that a try. I love the look.

Zerodog

jmphotocraft wrote: »

I like the lighting on 2 and 3 very much. I only wish it was more "Rembrandt" on his face, and not just one-sided. But I certainly know this isn't always easy to pull off in the moment.

Hackbone wrote: »

Love all of them especially the lighting. It goes right with the MMA image. Great job!!

jmphotocraft, thanks. #1 was the first shot we took in this set. I still really like it. But it took more adjusting to bring it even to this level. After a few of these shots I started cranking up the hair/rim or accent (whatever you want to call it) to bring up the right side. I also started rotating it closer to me to give more fill on the side of his face. The result of this was #3. This was one of the last shots in the set.

Thank you Hackbone! This darker harsh light look is what I was going for. This was a simple 2 light setup.

anonymouscuban gave me some great ideas for another way to get this look that is a little brighter. For sure need to try the glycerin. I will need to practice this one.

MDalby, what don't you like on the light? This was really on purpose to get this look.

Zerodog

Here are some more from an earlier session a week before.

#4


#5


#6 Lean and mean


#7


#8 Group shot Here is where I wish for more lights and modifiers. Would have been cool to do similar lighting with the group. Big umbrella directly to the side on left and right and maybe a smaller one over my head to do a little fill?


#9 Messing around

jpc

I like the lighting in all three of the first set, #2 being the best of the bunch.