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Pure Inspiration . . .

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Her and my own first try at this type of work ( she was 12 )





Nothing like having a nice, overcast day and a 70-200 mm lens...
Kevin Connery said:
Gary Eickmeier said:
rdbruski said:
Enjoy this find . . .

http://www.headshot-photography.com/portfolio.htm

No flash used here. Its all natural daylight with 1 reflector.
Amazing work. Of course the beautiful people help quite a bit.
Click to expand...
This is the Lighting Technique forum? Why are you posting such flat
images? Why is the lighting so flat, no kick, no modeling, no
variation from one picture to the next? And so green looking? I
don't think it's my monitor.
Click to expand...
It's green to you, and yellow to someone else, and they look
neutral on my [calibrated Monday] monitor.

Why post them? Because they're considered among the best
photographs in that field? It's not an approach I'd use for
portraiture, but giving much of anything else to a casting director
or agent will mean you get to shoot it over. By that definition,
they're far better than a Charis portrait, or an Arnold Newman
portrait, since they please the customer (actor/model) and their
own customers (agents, casting directors).

The specular highlights and contrast aren't quite as simple to get
as some people think, and do make a difference.

I see an awful lot of awful model and actor headshots. These aren't
museum portraits, but they are very very good headshots. And some
of that IS the lighting.

Challenge for anyone: shoot 2 or 3 headshots and compare with
Kevyn's examples. Then post yours and see people say--especially
the comments from people who select actors and/or models based on a
stack of headshots and comp cards. If your photos achieve a level
of success anywhere near what his do, you're in a very small
minority.
Click to expand...
--



http://www.caughtintimephotography.com
http://www.pbase.com/melaniekipp
 
Kevin Connery said:
It's green to you, and yellow to someone else, and they look
neutral on my [calibrated Monday] monitor.
Click to expand...
Joe Peoples writes:

Kevin, it's great that you have a "calibrated" monitor, but if you checked the image's CMYK values in Photoshop, you would see that the photo is indeed off in color. The folks who said the image was somewhat yellow are as correct as the ones who said it had too much green; there's a Yellow-Green funk going on. My guess is the color balance was skewed yellow and there's some green spill coming from the background.

 
I have saw this ones before, and I like them. Very fashion style, or at least my perception of fashion portraits.

Anyway I think he developed a personal style, making the pupils of the models really thin. That is part of his style.

Nothing much more to me that pops my eyes besides that and the way they looked good :)
rdbruski said:
Enjoy this find . . .

http://www.headshot-photography.com/portfolio.htm

No flash used here. Its all natural daylight with 1 reflector.
Amazing work. Of course the beautiful people help quite a bit.
Click to expand...
 
Melanie Kipp said:
Her and my own first try at this type of work ( she was 12 )





Nothing like having a nice, overcast day and a 70-200 mm lens...
Click to expand...
They're lovely portraits, and fine photographs. Neither is particularly good in the actor's headshot category, however.

No 'snap' to the eyes; the catchlight is too broad in that it doesn't give the crispness that helps "sell" the subject; no strong sense of personality (granted, that's not lighting--and she is 12 years old), and the images don't grab the viewer and demand that the viewer look at them.

I've got a whole bunch of shots that don't insist, either. :( It doesn't--at all--make them bad photographs, but it does make them less-than-desirable for this particular purpose.

Similar in vein to yours--nice photograph but not a strong actor's headshot is one I took using the same as you: nice overcast day and 70-200mm lens.



This one's a little closer, but it's still not quite there:

 
Chuck Gardner said:
Because his style is so identical from subject-to-subject I suspect
it may not stay in vougue for very long because people get tired of
seeing the same thing.
Click to expand...
What about the tired, old images that are often used as examples of good photography by Zelman (I think that's his name) .

Most photographers find a formula and stick to it, letting others try them new fangled ideas...

M
 
rdbruski said:
No flash used here. Its all natural daylight with 1 reflector.
Click to expand...
Not quite. Just one reflector.

Watch the video on his website or catch the eyes a bit more. He uses more than one reflector. At first you might go, he uses one reflector on a C-stand.

While flat lighting might not be your thing, and many say his work is "blah". I'm looking at his work a little more critically. Look at it from a person who is trying to learn lighting and explain what he is doing and you will see more reflectors in use.

His garage door is one big reflector from above. Look at the reflection in the eyes. Also, while looking there you will see his driveway is another reflector. Then with all these reflectors the photographer is a flag to punctuate the pupil. Then the sides of his driveway has viles or foilage.
That is the green/yellow cast that many of you pick-up on.

Well, the photographer didn't ask for a critique. Someone says, this guy inspires me and so I think its good to take a critical eye to someones work. How exactly did the photographer take these pic tures and what part might the lighting play.

It's not simply an overcast day. Although that is one technique for flat lighting.

Since this lighting, inspires the origanal poster, it would be nice to see work you have done that is inspired by this other photographers work.
 
I have read all the posts to this point about wether the lighting and the colors are good or bad. But all of it is irrelevant. What he produce is "character", "expression", "mood" and that's the main point of his photos. that's why he is "good"

G. Jobin
 
...and why he's laughing all the way to the bank.
l_ombre_jaune said:
I have read all the posts to this point about wether the lighting
and the colors are good or bad. But all of it is irrelevant. What
he produce is "character", "expression", "mood" and that's the main
point of his photos. that's why he is "good"

G. Jobin
Click to expand...
 
Dirty makeup, sores on the lips (dry), blurry eyes, flat hair, and oily pores on the nose.

I like the simple lighting and composition, but a bit of photoshop goes a long way imo. I overexposed the skin, but you get the idea. Just a little RGB curve, some sharpening and gausian blur, and the good old heal brush. Toped it off with a local contrast enhancement to punch up the hair.



If you were the model - which one would you choose?
 
This doesn't belong on Lighting OR Retouch forum. KMH does LA headshots for people looking to work in "the industry". You don't put portrait shadowing or glamour retouch on those headshot/comp cards, if you did you'd get tossed onto the reject pile in a second. ~ m²
Sarajean said:
Dirty makeup, sores on the lips (dry), blurry eyes, flat hair, and
oily pores on the nose.

I like the simple lighting and composition, but a bit of photoshop
goes a long way imo. I overexposed the skin, but you get the idea.
Just a little RGB curve, some sharpening and gausian blur, and the
good old heal brush. Toped it off with a local contrast
enhancement to punch up the hair.



If you were the model - which one would you choose?
Click to expand...
--

'Brothers and sisters, we've been told there's some bad bokeh going around' ~ Wavy Gravy at Photokina

 
Some of you are just not getting it.

I see it time and time again with people who take an image from a post and use a few digital manipulation skills to either butcher an image or making it into something it was never intended to be.

A professional actors headshot CANNOT be retouched like this!! What do you think a casting director is going to say when the person actually walks into their office?? Who are you would be a typical response I would imagine.

It is imperative to show the person as they truly are. Not to say very good makeup cannot be used, but one cannot do retouching like this where it is totally obvious.

This is not a portrait and it is not glamour. It is a headshot.

Please expand your horizons and understand that you cannot fit every single photograph of a person into a mold.

I don't mean to be harsh, but this forum is simply loaded with posters who are not considering the purpose of the image or the intended audience, so the comments and efforts are not relevant.
Sarajean said:
Dirty makeup, sores on the lips (dry), blurry eyes, flat hair, and
oily pores on the nose.

I like the simple lighting and composition, but a bit of photoshop
goes a long way imo. I overexposed the skin, but you get the idea.
Just a little RGB curve, some sharpening and gausian blur, and the
good old heal brush. Toped it off with a local contrast
enhancement to punch up the hair.



If you were the model - which one would you choose?
Click to expand...
--
A.J.
http://www.ag3photography.com
 
Sarajean said:
Dirty makeup, sores on the lips (dry), blurry eyes, flat hair, and
oily pores on the nose.

I like the simple lighting and composition, but a bit of photoshop
goes a long way imo. I overexposed the skin, but you get the idea.
Just a little RGB curve, some sharpening and gausian blur, and the
good old heal brush. Toped it off with a local contrast
enhancement to punch up the hair.
Click to expand...
It's still green - what's the MATTER with you people?

Gary Eickmeier
 
Paul Hagood said:
It looks like all the eyes in these folks are unnaturally lightened
by a 1/2 stop or so in post-processing. Am I seeing things, so to
speak?
Click to expand...
This is what I was gettin at in my post earlier.....

Although there are a) beautiful models b) good lighting, there is most importantly c)great (however subtle) post-processing.

This is why I said that the initial post was not an example of 'lighting technique'.....

--
Jason

'Everyone Poops' -Taro Gomi
 
I see your challenge but I don't think it is relevant.

Point conceded: KMH is an established Hollywood photographer. His work is respected and even sought after.

The only intention of my above post was to say to 'bruski' (original post) that there is not much that is 'pure' in terms of lighting in his inspiration to warrant a thread in a "lighting technique" forum.

Furthermore, the argument "if you can't do better then your opinion isn't valid" (which you insinuate in your challenge) is bogus. If the only ones who responded to posts were the very few 'experts', then these would truly be some quiet forums.

I usually quietly watch the lighting forum trying to pick up on stuff from the more experienced members. So, when I see a thread titled "Pure Inspiration" that exemplifies great post-processing (not inspirational lighting) I am compelled to add my $0.02. Your challenge is unnecessary and uncalled for.

--
Jason

'Everyone Poops' -Taro Gomi
 
While these may not be the best portraits in the world, they are made for a specific purpose, a head shot for a model/actor.

They have to viewed in that context.

Sure, the lighting is easy to adapt.

One of his HUGE advantages is simply that he is dealing with wannabe professionals who expect to pay enough to justify professionally done hair and makeup, which alone will make a HUGE difference in the quality of the photo.

The real judge of his work, in this case, are the numbers of people who feel they got jobs because of his photos. If they do, he's successful.

Of course, having attractive people helps in the first place, though I wonder if he's one a lot of work for people whose work makes them look less attractive?

Quality work and he gets paid a lot of money.

Not too bad!!
rdbruski said:
Enjoy this find . . .

http://www.headshot-photography.com/portfolio.htm

No flash used here. Its all natural daylight with 1 reflector.
Amazing work. Of course the beautiful people help quite a bit.
Click to expand...
 
http://www.headshot-photography.com/faq.htm

A: ......"Wendy is available for one on one retouching consultations and our prices are beyond fair and the lowest in the business. She can retouch anything within your picture, per your request. And finally, yes you are more than welcome to visit with our retouching department by appointment to view the work before green lighting."
 
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