Conveyor

Nikolai

After a year of emails, phone calls, tons of my good will gestures and rolls of mandatory red tape I finally got my foot into a local cal state, or more precisely, its music department. :ivar

Today was the first day of the first project: they needed the headshots for their website.

...3 hours and 450+ shots later the first series of 18 victims was covered.

Tomorrow the second, and final, shoot.

Here are some samples.

Rob The Sax Player:



Richard the Trumpeter (he's also into martial arts:-):



Phil The Computer Whiz:



Larry The Conductor:



Joel The Professor of Music:



Diane The Singer:



David The Conductor/Violinist:



Setup (I was actually amazed how precise my 5-min-$1-DIY snoot was):



All shot RAW, Canon 40D, EF-S 17-55/2.8, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/250. Processed in ACR 4.x.

Enjoy!

Richard

Wonderful work, Nik. I'm sure they will be pleased.

Cheers,

Scott_Quier

Nice work Nik!
The hair light does a very niice job of seperating them from the background
Nice exposure on the skin - no hot spots

I think my favorite is Joel, the Professor of Music.

Some thoughts:

• Larry - You loose a lot of his upper body to shadows
• Diane - I think turning her just a bit more toward the camera would improve the shot. A straighter posture for her would also work better here - better match to the more formal dress/top she is wearing.
• In a couple of the photos, the back of the draped chair is sneaking into the shot. I've found a stool works better for this sort of shot.

Edit: Forgot to mention - including the shot of your studio is very helpful and appreciated - Thanks. It's amazing what can be done.

Swartzy

Great set up you have there Nik. I really like the shot of Rob...nicely done. Personally (and I'm only sharing), I would have thrown a small light on the backdrop with a grid about 2 stops under. The black seems just a tad to involved with the hairline, even with the hairlight in place (which is great!). A good example is with Larry. His right side (camera left) is blending with the background.

Great for you getting to get the work! Whoo hoo! They should be pleased. Nice Nik.

Sam

Great job!!!

Sam

Awais Yaqub

Great portraits
amazing job

mr peas

My favs are the 1st and 2nd ones. They make good use of the hairlight and stuff. Larry's shot is way dark on his shirt, gotta' make that sucker pop out!

Very good of you to shoot overhead. Nicely done buddy! Show us the rest when you're finished so we can nitpick on them all. Thanks for sharing!

joshhuntnm

Great shots. The highlights are great. Thanks for including the studio shot. Where do I get that hightlight light. What do you call that?

Nikolai

Richard wrote:

Wonderful work, Nik. I'm sure they will be pleased.

Cheers,

Thanks, Richard!
They are, in fact! Just finished 2d day and they're already talking two more :-) :ivar

Nikolai

Scott_Quier wrote:

The hair light does a very nice job of separating them from the background
Nice exposure on the skin - no hot spots

I think my favorite is Joel, the Professor of Music.

Some thoughts:

• Larry - You loose a lot of his upper body to shadows
• Diane - I think turning her just a bit more toward the camera would improve the shot. A straighter posture for her would also work better here - better match to the more formal dress/top she is wearing.
• In a couple of the photos, the back of the draped chair is sneaking into the shot. I've found a stool works better for this sort of shot.

Edit: Forgot to mention - including the shot of your studio is very helpful and appreciated - Thanks. It's amazing what can be done.

Scott,
thank you for the C&C!
I know there are more things that went wrong/could be better.
My biggest gripe was an extremely limited time with each subject and general desire to keep every frame in sync with the others (since they will go to the same website, the the client wanted them all to have the same look and feel).
When I do regular portrait session I request at least an hour, if not two. Here it was 5 minute tops, some didn't even think it was a good idea, and most didn't know what to do in front of the camera. Breaking the ice, gaining the trust, directing every single move (chin up, to the left, head to the right, back straight, etc.) and finally getting each person to let their inner/natural self to show up - all that in 5 minutes or less was a single biggest challenge (hence the title of the post:-). Today I had three hours shoot (yesterday was two) and I came home tired as a dog...

Glad you liked the setup shot. More coming (from today)

Nikolai

Swartzy wrote:

Great set up you have there Nik. I really like the shot of Rob...nicely done. Personally (and I'm only sharing), I would have thrown a small light on the backdrop with a grid about 2 stops under. The black seems just a tad to involved with the hairline, even with the hairlight in place (which is great!). A good example is with Larry. His right side (camera left) is blending with the background.

Great for you getting to get the work! Whoo hoo! They should be pleased. Nice Nik.

Hey David, thanks for comments!
Yeah, I hear you! I brought 4 lights and used only two. Darn scheduling problems/mishaps made me set the whole thing up in a huge hurry, and I simply didn't have the luxury to put extra lights - the difference *really* was between "getting the shot" and "getting outta here". And once the conveyor started, there was no way to change anything dramatically.
I also must add that we originally agreed on "dramatic lighting" and totally black bg. I warned them about black concert dressed/tuxes blending with the bg, they were fine with it.

Nikolai

Sam wrote:

Great job!!!
Sam

Thanks, Sam!

Nikolai

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Great portraits
amazing job

Thank you, my friend, much appreciated!

Nikolai

mr peas wrote:

My favs are the 1st and 2nd ones. They make good use of the hairlight and stuff. Larry's shot is way dark on his shirt, gotta' make that sucker pop out!

Very good of you to shoot overhead. Nicely done buddy! Show us the rest when you're finished so we can nitpick on them all. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks!
Yeah, like I want to give this crowd an extra chance to chew me up alive

Nikolai

joshhuntnm wrote:

Great shots. The highlights are great. Thanks for including the studio shot. Where do I get that hightlight light. What do you call that?

Josh, you're welcome, thanks for stopping by!
This thingie is usually called hair light. You make it out of what you have..

Shane422

I really like all of these. They look even more amazing when you factor in the short time you had with each subject.

Nikolai

Shane422 wrote:

I really like all of these. They look even more amazing when you factor in the short time you had with each subject.

Thanks, Shane! Appreciate it!

Scott_Quier

Nikolai wrote:

Here it was 5 minute tops, some didn't even think it was a good idea, and most didn't know what to do in front of the camera. Breaking the ice, gaining the trust, directing every single move (chin up, to the left, head to the right, back straight, etc.) and finally getting each person to let their inner/natural self to show up - all that in 5 minutes or less was a single biggest challenge (hence the title of the post:-). Today I had three hours shoot (yesterday was two) and I came home tired as a dog...

Glad you liked the setup shot. More coming (from today)

Wow - only 5 minutes (or less) with each person - taking that into consideration, you done good bow

Nikolai

Scott_Quier wrote:

Wow - only 5 minutes (or less) with each person - taking that into consideration, you done good bow

Thanks, Scott!
I told you, it was a conveyor:-)

evoryware

wow excellent shots! Love the setup! I'm sure you learned a lot! Congrats.

Probably stupid question since you only had 5 minutes between people, do you have a laptop with you onsite to review the pics or do you just go by the camera LCD?

Travis

It looks like you are putting those new lights to go use. Nice set of images from a very challenging assignment.

Nikolai

evoryware wrote:

wow excellent shots! Love the setup! I'm sure you learned a lot! Congrats.

Thanks! And yes I did:-)

Do you have a laptop with you onsite to review the pics or do you just go by the camera LCD?

No, I do not. I wouldn't help me in this case anyway, I barely had time to chimp quickly to ensure there is no major screw-ups. I tried to chimp 3 times per person:
1. After the first couple of shots. This killed two ducks: I was sure all the strobes are firing and it also gave the "victim" a sudden pause, so he/she could drop the initial typical tense state and relax a little. Needless to say, I was watching him/her relax with a corner of my eye and then tried to direct him/her in a direction that seemed more natural for this particular person.
2. In the imaginary middle of the shoot (2-3 minutes in). Again, person could genuinely relax, and I could decided what additional angles/poses we should try - or simply call it a day if I saw that nothing else is feasible.
3. If decision was made to continue after CS2 (Chimping Session #2), we shot few minutes more and then I verified than the last crop is good, too.

I must say, in this scenario chimping was perfectly fine.
1) Person could relax, and then I can catch him/her off-guard while s/he is still in the relaxed state
2) I had an ability to monitor the output, and in a few cases it really saved a whole bunch of frames after the light was readjusted a bit.
3) Person did see that I care and got real-time assurance that everything is in order and we're getting good images. It helped with relaxing and general rapport.

Nikolai

Travis wrote:

It looks like you are putting those new lights to go use. Nice set of images from a very challenging assignment.

Thank you, Travis! At least I tried:-)

Sandy

You did a great job...I would be happy with these shots.

Nikolai

Sandy wrote:

You did a great job...I would be happy with these shots.

Thanks, Sandy!
I hope they are, too:-)

DavidS

Awesome shots!!! Extremely well done.

Nikolai

DavidS wrote:

Awesome shots!!! Extremely well done.

Thank you David!

shatch

Wonderful! Your lighting provides a great depth to the photos. You also did a great job in catching the personality of each person. It is easy for me as a viewer to feel some connection or understanding of the performer. Great job! Thanks for posting the set up. Very helpful to those of us who like to know how the masters are doing it.

Nikolai

shatch wrote:

Wonderful! Your lighting provides a great depth to the photos. You also did a great job in catching the personality of each person. It is easy for me as a viewer to feel some connection or understanding of the performer. Great job! Thanks for posting the set up. Very helpful to those of us who like to know how the masters are doing it.

Thank you for your kind words!
I would gladly trade all my gear for your talent, but some things apparently are not on the market:-)
Cheers!