month: August 2010




08.12.2010

Portraits – Photographer Matt Dewitt – Website www.mattdewitt.com

LOCATION: An unused office building/warehouse in St. Louis, Missouri. Several photographers and fitness models got together for an afternoon of shooting and we used this building as one of the models knew the person who owned the building.

CAMERA: Nikon D90 with a Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens at 42mm. 1/200 @ f/11 at ISO 400. I bumped to ISO so I could use a smaller aperture to maintain more detail and focus.

LIGHTING: One Nikon SB-900 front camera right in Westcott 28″ Apollo softbox at 1/2 power, 2x Nikon SB-600s back camera left and right with 1/8″ Honl grids at 1/8 power. Triggered via CLS with Nikon SB-800 as commander flash. I love using small speedlights as they are small and versatile, and they can do 90% of what I would need big studio lights to do.

CREATIVE PROCESS: The model, Lauren, had brought in some weights and she suggested this pose, with her doing push ups on the dumbells for a more intense work out. I wanted to amplify that intensity with my lighting, so I rimmed her with the two gridded speedlights which helped bring some nice definition to her edges. Then I just added a small 28″ softbox to the front to bring her face in. We’d get about 4-5 shots before she had to rest because holding yourself up like that takes a lot of work. The look came naturally as she was actually working pretty hard to maintain the pose. I had just bought a smoke machine to play around with, so that was there just for fun.

POST PRODUCTION: I shot in RAW and I double-processed the RAW file, one with lots of clarity, sharpening, fill light, contrast, blacks, to get that really gritty look, and then the other one was more natural looking for her skin with some added warmth. I then masked in the skin and left everything else gritty. I softened the skin and then did some dodging and burning to bring out the highlights and shadows. I finished it all off with a duplicated Soft Light layer and Curves layer for even more contrast.





08.06.2010

Portraits – Photographer Jason Beet – Website www.eileenmason.co.uk

LOCATION: Eileen Mason Photography where I am the head of the Creative Team. I encourage all of our Photographers to produce exciting images that motivate them to take better photographs for our Clients. I had seen Jason on a website and approached him to pose for me.

CAMERA: We used was Hasselblad H2 80mm lens P21 Phase digital back.

LIGHTING: Bowens with ‘Beauty Dish’ (this is great for showing softness with a hard edge) plus a large 8ft reflector about 5 feet to the left.

CREATIVE PROCESS: I was looking for a gritty hard image, showing character. I choose a dark backdrop and strong lighting; I wanted to make the shot moody and manly. Expression is everything on this image I knew it was a great look from the model when I took the shot and I remember being excited to get it into Photoshop and work on it.

POST PRODUCTION: I changed the image to sepia because I loved the tone of this subject’s skin. I increased the Contrast slightly in Photoshop; eyes were slightly highlighted using the dodge tool. I darkened the edges of the image to bring more focus into the middle. NO softening was used on this image to keep it looking gritty!


Portraits – Photographer Jason Beet – Website www.eileenmason.co.uk

LOCATION: This portrait was created as of a range of images taken of a family group with Mum and Dad. The venue was Eileen Mason Photography where we have a very talented creative team. I concentrated on producing some really great group shots and the individuals of Ruby that hopefully Mum and Dad couldn’t resist. Ruby a 4year old live wire responded wonderfully to a full range of different poses we tried and she loved dressing up.

CAMERA: We used was Hasselblad H2 80mm lens P21 Phase digital back.

LIGHTING: Bowens Esprit with 50’’ soft box close to subject, fill was an Esprit bounced from the back walls. Fill also came from a gold reflector placed under the girls face bouncing light upwards.

CREATIVE PROCESS: This little girl had such an intense inquisitive look throughout the shoot, I knew after about 5 minutes of shooting the family groups she would photography beautifully. I wanted to create a slightly haunting image; I wanted the image to reflect her personality and show off eyes. I always insist on the studio being a quiet and tranquil environment so I can talk and connect with the model. I feel children respond well to this. I took mainly close up images to show off her features and choose the gold material to compliment Ruby’s pale complexion and golden hair.

POST PRODUCTION: Using Adobe Photoshop the image was tweaked in curves to lighten, it was then high passed through filters to heighten the intensity in the eyes. I then softened the image with Gaussian blur on 30% opacity brought back the eyes and darkened the edges.