krisgaluska

Ol'Blue Eyes

James and his soft blue eyes

James and his soft blue eyes
Read less

DMC-G6

Aperture f/1.8 ISO 160 Shutter 1/200

upload_date

Aug, 2014

Views

382

Likes

+30

Awards

Fall Award 2020

Outstanding Creativity

Superb Composition

Top Choice

Absolute Masterpiece

All Star

Superior Skill

Magnificent Capture

Exceptional Contrast

Great Find

Jaw Dropping

Peer Award

Top Ranks

Top 10 rank

Top 30 rank week 2

Behind The Lens

Location

Living in Los Angeles, studio space comes at a premium. So when I wanted to play with studio lighting and portraiture, I set up a make shift studio in the narrow hallway of my one bedroom apartment. And it really was hand made. I took an old sheet and hung it over the walls and cabinets and used duct tape to keep it in place. it was only a little over three feet wide so it was really only good for tight portraits or as I soon discovered, cat portraits.

Time

After a long week at work I found myself on a Friday night with my wife out of town and all of Los Angeles to explore, so of course I ended up spending the night creating a studio for cat portraits.

Lighting

As with the whole setup the lighting was very DIY. I took a hardware store heat lamp and clamped it to and extra tripod I had lying around. The light was very hard and harsh, but I remembered and old trick from my film school days. I took two fabric softener drier sheets and taped them over the heat lamp. These work surprisingly well at diffusing the light, and since they are made to withstand high heat there is less of a chance they will burst in to flames. Besides that the only other light source was a reflector on the ground to create a little bit of bounce light. A bonus of using continuous light was that I could use a higher shutter speed then my camera capable of syncing with a flash. This allowed me to use a large aperture and a shallower depth of field.

Equipment

I used a Panasonic G6. I'm a big proponent of the micro four thirds format mainly for the size advantage of not just the camera but also the lenses. For this shot I used the Olympus 45mm f1.8 portrait lens. This is a great little lens that had two very big advantages for this shoot. It's f1.8 aperture allowed for a shallow dept of field, and it's 90mm equivalent focal length helped hide the fact that my "studio" was a very narrow hallway. Luckily I also had two tripods. One acted as a make shift light stand and the other supported the camera. Since I didn't have an assistant I needed one hand to release the shutter and the other to hold up pastrami as a bribe for my cat, so a tripod was absolutely necessary.

Inspiration

I have always loved lighting, but since my film school days I had relied almost entirely on natural lighting. I particularly love simple 1 to 3 light setups that create moods reminiscent of old Hollywood Film Noirs. With my wife out of town and a Friday night to myself I set up a makeshift studio. The plan was to use myself as the model and just play with lighting. However, my cats grew very curious as to what their crazy master was up to, and it was soon hard to get a decent shot without them jumping in my lap or on my shoulder. So I quickly gave in and let them do most the modeling.

Editing

One of the disadvantage of the DIY approach is that you don't always have the proper equipment for the shot. For example, the sheet I used as a back drop for this image was actually purple, so in Lightroom I crushed the shadows which eliminated any trace of the purple in the background. I purposefully shot the image slightly overexposed so I could crush the blacks without making the subject too dark. I also used the spot remove tool to remove some of the frame of the stool my cat was sitting on. Lastly, and increase in clarity helped bring out the layers in my cat's fur.

In my camera bag

I like to travel light. This is the main reason I use the micro four thirds format. My bag is hardly 8 inches wide but I carry Panasonic G6 with kit lens along with the Olympus 45mm and 17mm 1.8 primes. The 17mm is normally my go to lens as it forces me to focus on composition and not just rely on depth of field to get rid of nasty backgrounds. Other then the camera and lenses, I always have a lens cleaning pen, a polarizing filter, and a variable neutral density filter.

Feedback

The key to a good pet portrait is finding a treat that will be a worth while bribe for them to sit still. For my cat's it was Pastrami. Surprisingly they aren't too fond of tuna. In all seriousness patience is the key to a good pet portrait. I took over 200 photos to get about 10 that I loved including this one. Beyond that I would suggest using continuous lighting vs a strobe. This does a few things. It allows the animal to get comfortable and not be scared each time the strobe flashes. It also dilates their pupils which will show more detail in their eyes and help their personality pop.

See more amazing photos, follow krisgaluska

krisgaluska

krisgaluska

Ol'Blue Eyes

James and his soft blue eyes

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow krisgaluska

Share photos. Enter contests to win great prizes. Earn coins, get amazing rewards. Join for free.

Share photos. Enter contests to win great prizes.
Earn coins, get amazing rewards. Join for free.