Portrait
Aug, 2015Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
The photo was taken in my basement office in front of an old black blanket.Time
It was in the afternoon. I was teaching myself how to light with a single Speedlite for a shoot I was planning in a couple of weeks.Lighting
This was the first time I had ever used an auxiliary light. I spent of lot of time experimenting with placement, ambient, power and exposure prior to getting it just right. It was probably the 500th photo I took of myself in the process.Equipment
It was a selfie. So I had my Canon 60D on a tripod, a Canon Speedlite 550EX, A Phottix Stratto trigger, an old black blanket for a backrop and bunch of pins to hold it to the wall.Inspiration
My brothers and I were in the midst of a heated mustache competition that had lasted from Thanksgiving and was going to run through the end of February. I knew I wanted to capture the event in a grand style and this was perfect opportunity to move out of the daylight and start learning studio lighting. It was a modest start, but I learned a lot by starting off small and experimenting. A lot.Editing
It took a fair amount of Photoshop work to get it to the point I wanted it. I worked a lot on the vignetting to get the dark background, cleaned up some skin imperfections (but not so much it didn't look real), color balanced/graded and added some sharpening to finish it all off.In my camera bag
My bag is always changing and growing. Right now I have a Canon 6D, Cowboy studio 4/1 bounce, cleaning kit (always a cleaning kit), a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 and I just got a Canon 70-200 f/2.8. I shoot mostly natural light, but have been slowly building my competencies in studio.Feedback
My best advice is to have an idea in your head of what you're trying to capture and keep working until you get it. As previously mentioned it took me hundreds of shots and set-ups to get to this one. Now I could do it in my sleep (and probably do it better). I'm always amazed at how much there is to learn in this discipline and how much it changes day-to-day and month-to-month. I think that's what keeps it so much fun.
