The White Wizard
Jun, 2016Views
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Contest Finalist in A Blast From The Past Photo Contest
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Behind The Lens
Location
In my home studio.Time
Mid-afternoonLighting
I was hoping to capture a more emotional side of Dana here and so I went for hatchet lighting. The light is placed just behind him angled the slightest bit towards him pointed away from the background. He's positioned probably 5 feet away from the background. The fall off of the light was really nice because it gives this wonderful silhouette of his backside against the background.... just adding a touch of form, so his body isn't in complete blackness.Equipment
Canon 5d mark iii. Canon 85mm f1.2L II. Elinchrom HD500. Chimera 50x50 deep soft box.Inspiration
Dana had been growing out his beard for over a year and he mentioned he was going to cut it off. On a whim I insisted he came into the studio and did some portraits. Dana is a comedian/actor/improviser and he's had some great successes but the industry has been hard on him. He's an excellent friend. I knew he'd come in and want to get some funny/hammy shots, but I was hell bent on capturing the other side of him. In the series of pictures, this is at the very beginning of a new lighting set up. He thought I was just testing the lights here and that's why it's so candid and real, the image right after this he raised his arm up and started performing for the camera... which are also really great hilarious shots, but I was so grateful to capture this moment.Editing
Simple conversion to black and white and added a bit of matte and grain, to help the mood and tell the story.In my camera bag
It all depends on the day and the shoot, but my go to equipment is: Canon 5d mark iii Canon 85mm f1.2L II Canon 24-70mm f2.8L ii Canon 70-200mm f2.8L ii Sekonic L-358 Lightmeter 2 Elinchrom HD 500 50x50 soft box with or without grid.Feedback
Get your light source on the side of your subject, a tiny bit raised up and angled down... and then either inch your subject forward, or inch the light back with a tiny rotation to point the light at the subject. In this shot, if Dana was facing me directly, he would have been practically back lit, so play around with where they are positioned. I always direct my subjects with 'point your nose to the left' or 'point your nose down/up/right/more' etc. If they point their nose... their face has to follow. So be specific with your direction and play around. More importantly, to capture a candid moment like this in studio... we all put up walls and throw on masks and our job as portrait photographer is to find the way through that wall or underneath the mask. There are many approaches to this, you can distract, you can dig and mine through it, or you can just catch them when their guard is down. I'm thrilled with the rest of the shots from this session, where Dana is mugging to the camera and being hilarious, but this shot will stand the test of times for me.
