Portrait...
Oct, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken in my apartment in Vienna, Austria. I took the chance to transform my living room into a homestudio while my wife was out of town. So I could build up all my gear (backdrops, strobes, etc.) alone and in peace ;) Then I made a good friend of mine, Marc, come over to take a few photos with him as my model. Marc was doing this for the first time, so it came handy that he brought a six pack beer along ;) was fun!Time
We started shooting at around 2pm and stopped by 7pm. We tried several setups and styles. This was planed as a learning session for me, gladly a few good pictures came out too.Lighting
Simple Setup. Wanted to go for Rembrand lighting. Had a strobe in a grided deep para slightly left and from above, a stripbox camera right and behind Marc.Equipment
I shot this with my Nikon D7100 and the Sigma 70mm 2.8. I used Jinbei strobes, a Jinbei Striplight and a deep para as light modifier, the cheetah ricebowl.Inspiration
As mentioned, for me that was a learning and testing session. So I tried out a few of the classic lighting Setups. Here the Rembrandt lighting.Editing
I was doing some post processing in Adobe Photoshop. Healing, dodge and burn, vignetting, color corrections. I personally don't like his nose ring too much and I was pretty tempted to remove it in PS, but as it actually is an important part of Marc, I eventually decided to not touch it ;)In my camera bag
I usually, when I'm out and about, try to have only the smallest amount of gear with me. So my camera (Nikon D7100) of course, an old Nikkor 24mm f2,8 and the Nikkor 50mm f1,4D. Most times also a Yongnuo 560MarkIII flash. When I know I'm going to take some portraits, I love my Sigma 70mm f2,8! When travelling I usually bring a Tokina 12-24mm f4.0 along. Edit: Now switched to a D610, a Tamron 15-30mm and the Nikkor 85mm f1,8. Still having the old Nikkor 50mm f1,4DFeedback
In Portraits the main goal for me is to really capture the person. To achieve that, it is important that your model is relaxed and feels well. Although my model was a good friend, we've know each other for years, it was Kind of challenging. As soon as he was Standing right in front of the camera, he became uptight. It took us a while until he slightly began to relax. Then we started getting better and better results. He also brought in his own ideas and we tried out different light setups. So be patient, try to make your model feel comfortable, and then start working. If your model brings in own ideas, it's a win win situation!
