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Phil_Rose

Phil_Rose

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Hi all, I am trying to do studio portraits like these...

http://www.andyweekes.net/index.php?/black--white-portraits/

I have three Alien Bees (400,800 and 1600) and a cheap piece of crap for lighting backdrops! I also have a black backdrop for just this kind of work but I am wondering how this stuff is done. Is it just one or two lights? Is the deep contrast and highlighting of cracked faces done mostly in post? It looks like Nik to me. I did a shoot last night and I know that the models weren't old a crinkly enough(!) but even so it doesn't look right...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/philrose/albums/72157711339727432

Any pointers would be terrific.

Thanks!

Phil
 
Soft frontal light (often window-light) followed by really heavy-handed post-production.
 
Phil_Rose said:
Soft frontal lighting? I was using a snoot because I thought it would need to be totally hard lighting?
Click to expand...
You want soft frontal lighting, if you're going to push the contrast really hard in Photoshop.

Boris and Richard Briers are shot with soft window-light.
 
Most of the portraits are lit somewhere from the front/side with one or two raised light sources and pretty soft from a close distance.
Keep the background away from the light.

Basically you get a nicely, evenly lit portrait. Then you process very heavy handed. It can be NIK, Portrait Pro, or whatever coal miner's software you have.
 
Now the only challenge is to get a coal miner with enough wrinkles in front of your camera.
 
Looks like focused lights and lots of burning and dodging, working with contrast and maybe some custom B&W filtration during processing
 
Phil_Rose said:
Soft frontal lighting? I was using a snoot because I thought it would need to be totally hard lighting?
Click to expand...
Always check the catch lights. They can tell you more about the lighting than anything else.

After that look at the nose shadow.
 
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