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Daniella

Portrait of the very glamorous Daniella

Portrait of the very glamorous Daniella
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Nov, 2015

Views

3277

Likes

+626

Awards

Chatter Award

Legendary Award

Contest Finalist in Unforgettable Portraits Photo Contest by Zenfolio

Featured

Contest Finalist in Dramatic Portraits Photo Contest

Staff Winter Selection 2015

Peer Award

+130

Superb Composition

+67

Top Choice

+66

Absolute Masterpiece

+37

Love it

+19

Outstanding Creativity

+12

Superior Skill

All Star

Magnificent Capture

Virtuoso

Emotions

Impressed

Top Ranks

Top 30 rank

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 2

Top 10 rank week 1

Top 20 rank

Top 20 rank week 3

Top 20 rank week 2

Top 20 rank week 1

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 2

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 3

Top 10 rank week 1

Top 20 rank

Top 10 rank week 1

Top 20 rank week 2

Behind The Lens

Location

This image of Daniella, a student and part time model, was captured in my home studio. I live and work in Nicosia, Cyprus as a full time photographer, but this was a personal project.

Time

It is shot indoors, I think around midday, or maybe early afternoon.

Lighting

The backdrop is actually a large grey canvas, but I moved Daniella several meters forward until she was almost directly in front of giant window (2 x 3 meters), and this subsequently darkened the background and lit her up very dramatically. The rest of the room was dark with all doors and windows shut to get directional light and avoid 'light pollution'. The size of the light source is the key here, it wraps around Daniella and has a flat lighting quality that resembles beauty lighting, which is very flattering for female models, and is also filling in the shadows on her face. The result is very dramatic and contrasty lighting, which surprises many when they learn its achieved with 100% natural light.

Equipment

NIKON D700 and a 50.0 mm f/1.4 lens, wide open at f/1.4 and handheld at 1/320s ISO 100

Inspiration

Capturing portraits gives me a feeling inside that I can't really describe, but its like a sense of fulfillment that every artist craves. I don't need much motivation to set up a shoot, it simply comes from a desire to create, and so I try to shoot as often as I can, both professionally and for my own personal projects.

Editing

I have done minimal post processing on this particular portrait, on some of my images I do a lot of retouching but for this one I only adding a slight vignette and some colour correction in Lightroom. The real magic was getting it right in camera and this is done by paying attention to lighting, posing and also using a shallow depth of field to get that dramatic fall off.

In my camera bag

I carry a range of good quality lenses, some prime and some telephoto, and two camera body's (D800 and D700), I rely mostly on my portrait lenses like my 85mm f/1.8 and occasionally my 50mm f/1.4 and I also use a versatile 24-70mm f/2.8 telephoto a great deal.

Feedback

I try to remind myself that portrait photography is about communicating expression and emotion, and the rest is secondary or complimentary to this goal. When I switched to digital from film, for a time I felt my photography took a step backwards and this troubled me. I soon realized the freedom and temptation to shoot a lot of frames with digital meant I was less cautious when shooting and less focused on the finer details... I needed to re-evaluate my approach, and to slow down, to gain more control again over the basics and not rush to shoot so many frames just because I can. To get that one great shot will most likely never happen by accident, so by slowing down and focusing on your subjects expression, and taking enough time to get as much right in camera as you can, it is likely you will experience what I did and improve your portraits... You may even surpass your expectations. My second tip is that it is easy to get lost in complicated equipment and lighting setups. This shoot was a great example of that... I was using two cameras and two contrasting setups. 70% of my time was spent shooting with strobes and 30% with natural light. My primary setup was very complicated indeed, my primary body in this instance was a high end D800 coupled with a 3 light setup using Profoto lighting, and 70cm Beauty dish as a key-light. I also tethered to an expensive iMac... So a lot of expensive gear, but all that gear didn't mean I would get the money shot. After shooting this way for the bulk of the time, I switched to my backup camera and used only natural light to get another perspective. The simplified setup doesn't mean I compromised on quality, it simply changes the look. Although the primary setup produced decent results, the money shot was captured on my backup camera using only a D700 and natural light. A reminder to me that a good photographer focuses on visual communication and not equipment, which is simply a means to an end.

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Daniella

Portrait of the very glamorous Daniella

Behind The Lens

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