Clothing for casual shot

alaios

Hi all,
I will have a friend visiting this Sunday that he would be kindly posing for me. The purpose of this shooting would be me to try different (simple ones) lighting setups and perhaps a bit of posing.
What should I ask him to wear?
He is dark skinned... I understand that since this is a training session for me clothing is not that important but from the other side this does mean that asking him to wear a proper color of jeans and shirt would be something to not take care of.

Btw, he is wearing glasses... (and I am not sure how this would work out with my flashes and umbrella lighting)

Regards
Alex

Hackbone

You have two choices..... high key, meaning brighter style/type of set and low key, meaning darker style/type of set. If you background is of a darker nature you should use a somewhat equal shade and if your bkg is of a brighter nature then a more brighter shade. That is a general rule and yes it is broken often with great results if you have a particular goal.

When you use the opposites then your subjects clothing stands out instead of his/her face which should be the dominant factor. Remember brighter colors come forward to meet the eye before darker colors do and brighter clothing puts weight on people. Stay away from bold patters as they again distract from the face.

On the glasses part do two shots without him moving, one with the glasses and one without. You can then crop the eyes out of the one without glasses and put them into the shot with the glass glare. You can lessen the glare by moving your main light higher but that will alter where you want you shadows so be careful. There are new lenses out now that are anti-glare and are wonderful to photograph as the glare is greatly reduce if not gone.

If he is really dark skinned be careful using a kicker light from the rear as it will accent facial bumps and they are terrible to retouch.

alaios

Hackbone wrote: »

...You have two choices..... high key, meaning brighter style/type of set and low key, meaning darker style/type of set. If you background is of a darker nature you should use a somewhat equal shade and if your bkg is of a brighter nature then a more brighter shade. That is a general rule and yes it is broken often with great results if you have a particular goal.
....

great thanks.. can you give me some examples of what you mean by sets? Lets say that I pick the darker set... does that mean a dark blue blue jean and a greyish/black shirt?

what about the light options? Does this meaning opting for whites?

Regards
Alex

Hackbone

alaios wrote: »

great thanks.. can you give me some examples of what you mean by sets? Lets say that I pick the darker set... does that mean a dark blue blue jean and a greyish/black shirt?

what about the light options? Does this meaning opting for whites?

Regards
Alex

It is a balance, don't use exactly the same color but if I was outside in a green area I would ask them to dress in "earth tones" but if I was shooting into the sky or a bright beach scene I would use lighter colored clothes ie pastels etc. White can be used effectively especially with a white bkg as now the face is the odd color and strands out with all the white around it.

Take some of your photos and turn them upside down and squint your eyes and you can see the objectionable colors better.

sets, dark wooden area or heavily darker green, grey/black/brown studio backgrounds, dark rocky area.

Always think about the face as the color to be somewhat opposite. Again all these rules are broken often with pleasing results but when you see one done correctly side by side it really makes a difference.

There is too much shoot and spray going on and that is pulling down the quality of photography so practice and remember mistakes are a good thing when they help you to realize quality photography.

alaios

thanks.. unfortunately my model did not want to hear about clothing.. when I started the discussion I saw that he has starting feeling unconfortable... anyway that still gives me time to work on posing and lighting.. He also does not want to take out his glasses... Any ideas how I can incorporate the lighting reflections on his glasses?

Regards
Alex