1. Portrait, scale and setting

The first aspect of creating a set of portraits was to establish a suitable space with background and lighting.  In this exercise I wanted to emphasize the qualities of the subject and so chose to use a neutral background, a large black cloth that stretched from ceiling to floor.  I also asked my model, Heidi (my wife), to wear black.  This meant that the emphasis of the portraits would be Heidi with no distraction from clothing or situation.  This may not always be the best choice, but for this project enabled me to concern myself mostly with framing and poise.

For lighting I used a pair of 400J monoblock flash guns, remotely triggered with Pocket Wizards.  I used a very simple lighting setup, with one light either side of Heidi and a ratio of 2:1 or 4:1 dialed into the lights.  Each light was in a softbox, one 50x50cm, the other around 75x75cm.  Since completing this project I have read a little more about light placement and now understand that this was rather naive and would produce fairly flat lighting, however, both Heidi and I were pleased with the results.  I also had a reflector to add further fill if needed.  I plan to refine this as I go through chapter of the course.

The camera used was a Canon 5D MkII and I used a range of different prime lenses, 50mm, 85mm, and 135mm.  I did not mount the camera on a tripod as I find this to be very restrictive and clumsy for portraiture, also given the relatively small space to work in.  The final piece of equipment used was a flash meter to check the exposure.  

Whilst setting up the lighting my next door neighbor wandered in through the patio doors to see what I was up to.  I immediately recruited Niall to check that the lighting was working:

135mm, f/5.6, 1/125s, ISO 100

The lighting as expected was fairly even, but with enough shadow to model the contours of the face.  I had chosen the positioning of the lights to avoid illuminating the background, so was very happy with the deep black that I managed to achieve.

Heidi then joined me and replaced Niall as the subject.  First of all I wanted to create a facial close up and used the 135mm to enable me to stand back a little, in fact this may have worked even better with a 200mm prime as I still had plenty of working space.  My plan was to be able to shoot through the patio doors for longer shots, but heavy rain put paid to that idea.  In the following shots Heidi is seated.

135mm, f/8, 1/125s, ISO 100

I also wanted to experiment with a shallower depth of field, however, even on minimum settings my flash guns added too much light.  A 3-stop ND filter fixed this, although there was a very perceptible red caste to the images which had to be corrected in post processing:

135mm, f/2.8, 1/125s, ISO 100

This softened the image quite a bit, although the change in posing makes this a little difficult to evaluate.  Next step was to drop back a little a create head and shoulders shots:

135mm, f/8, 1/125s, ISO 100

135mm, f/8, 1/125s, ISO 100

These are the least interesting poses as they resemble passport photographs too much, but do bring out the structure of the face very well.  I also notice the deeper shadows on the face caused by poor placement of my fill light, next time I will place it in line with the camera, rather than to one side.  The other issue with my strobe placement is the double catch light in the eyes, which could be fixed in post production, but is not very desirable.

Pulling back further for a torso shot, I switched to my 50mm prime and took the following:

50mm, f/8, 1/125s, ISO 100

With this pose we chose to include Heidi's hands, the downward V of the hands balances well with the upward V of the face.  This created a very open and friendly position, however, I wanted something a little more casual and so turned the chair by 90 degrees:

50mm, f/8, 1/125s, ISO 100

I prefer this pose as it is more relaxed, but this is very subjective decision.  Finally I pulled all the way back for a couple of full body images

50mm, f/8, 1/125s, ISO 100

50mm, f/8, 1/125s, ISO 100

Once again prefer the less formal shot with the chair at 90 degrees, Heidi preferred the second shot.  At this point the focus upon the face is lost and the overall shape of the body becomes more important, although the choice of black clothing loses much of the upper body contour.

My final pair of images are an experiment in taking the fill light, removing the softbox and placing it directly behind Heidi pointing upwards to create a hair light. Again having done a little reading I now realize that the optimum position would have been high and pointing down.  I then used my reflector to provide a fill light.

85mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 100

85mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 100

I liked the effect on the second image, but realize I have a lot to learn about light placement.  I plan to augment my lighting set up with a couple more monoblocks and will return to this when I work on Exercise 6.