Headshot problem

fredjclaus

I'm supposed to photograph headshots for a local women's group tonight. The hotel overbooked events, and the women's group got moved to the restaurant. We had planned on doing it in this one room because there were plain white walls and I would need no backgroungs (my stand is 12' wide). The room they moved us to has tan wallpaper with felt flower designs in it.

Is there a way to photograph the headshots against this wall, and still get a good usable image?

Fred

Icebear

fredjclaus wrote: »

I'm supposed to photograph headshots for a local women's group tonight. The hotel overbooked events, and the women's group got moved to the restaurant. We had planned on doing it in this one room because there were plain white walls and I would need no backgroungs (my stand is 12' wide). The room they moved us to has tan wallpaper with felt flower designs in it.

Is there a way to photograph the headshots against this wall, and still get a good usable image?

Fred

Move your subjects way forward of the wall and let the light fall-off take the wall toward black.

divamum

Yup, what John said. Also, use the shallowest depth of field you can, and focus on their eyes - you'll actually get a gorgeous effect if they're far enough away from it, and it will comes out looking like either a traditional spatter-drop or a fashion shoot, depending on how much the bokeh blurs it out (and how ugly the wallpaper is to start with! )

If you don't have a fast-aperture lens, you can cheat dof a little bit by standing closer to them, as well (within the reasonable limts of your focal length of course - obviously if you're TOO close their faces will distort). So if, for instance, you're shooting at 50mm, you could put them 10-12ft away from the wall, and have the camera maybe 5-7ft away, you'll really maximise their faces versus the background. Distances etc will vary according to focal length, but hopefully that makes some kind of sense....

fredjclaus

Thanks for those tips. I normally shoot with the subject 3-5 feet away from the background. I'll try 10-12 and post some results here later in the week.

Moving Pictures

Bokeh, Dano. Move 'em away from that grandma's couch/Don Cherry's suit background. Shallow be the depth of field. If you have a 70-200 f2.8, park that, step away from the subject four-six feet, et voila.

Alternate solution: always carry a bland surface with you. A nice, simple, grey blanket is ideal. (Which reminds me, I gotta replace mine sometime.)

Nikolai

Moving Pictures wrote: »

Bokeh, Dano. Move 'em away from that grandma's couch/Don Cherry's suit background. Shallow be the depth of field. If you have a 70-200 f2.8, park that, step away from the subject four-six feet, et voila.

Alternate solution: always carry a bland surface with you. A nice, simple, grey blanket is ideal. (Which reminds me, I gotta replace mine sometime.)

Ditto. Light close, bg far. Remember, it's a distance squared. "Light close" also provides for a stonger gradient/fallof, aka 3D effect.
Here's a sample math: light is 3ft away in front of the subject, bg is 12ft behind the subject. D1/D0 = (12 + 3) / 3 = 5, i.e. you'll have 5 full stops (!) of difference. Maybe not entirely black, but very, very dark. I'm not even talking about angling/gridding light, which can totally nullify the spill on the bg.

And of course, portable BG is also a great solution...

Art Scott

If nothing else you can easily remove the subject from the ugly background and merge to digital back ground...or use the paint bucket in Photoshop and just paint the danged thing...or build a colorful gradient in photoshop and put that behind them....we be in the digital age mon....don't worry be happy...

Moving Pictures

Art Scott wrote: »

If nothing else you can easily remove the subject from the ugly background and merge to digital back ground...or use the paint bucket in Photoshop and just paint the danged thing...or build a colorful gradient in photoshop and put that behind them....we be in the digital age mon....don't worry be happy...

I think the OP is trying to find a way to solve a composition issue. Photoshop isn't the answer to everything, and frankly, I grow tired of too many lazy "photographers" who continue to make errors because they haven't the knowledge and tools required, then "solve" the problem using digital tools.

Me, I'd rather learn ways of snaring the pic right, the first time, OOC, without relying on the crutch of digital fakery post-capture. It seems the OP is doing the same.

JamesCroftPhotography

Agree with the above. One quick question though; are you working on a FF or cropped sensor? The distances will vary depending on the size of the sensor, along with the obvious focal length issues everyone else has talked about. You'll need to be further back with the cropped sensor from your subject, so you'll want to adjust your distance from the bg accordingly.