Photo Breakdown #1
One of the hardest parts was just getting the kids in the door.
by Benjamin Weatherston - August 30, 2011
When asked to shoot a bunch of students for The Ann magazine's September issue, I immediately knew what style I wanted. It's a lighting set up I'd been wanting to do for awhile. It's technical without being complicated and polished without looking high fashion. I could show you the lighting diagram and photos of the set build but there was more to this shoot that just taking pictures.
Logistically, finding an ethnically diverse group of UofM undergrad students in the summer turned out to be quite a challenge. Almost all of my friends were either grad students or out of town. There also happened to be alerts out warning people of possible sexual assaults. So our strategy of asking people to "come to our warehouse for some pictures" didn't go over too well.
The M Den was gracious enough to donate some t-shirts to our cause and they looked amazing! Sometimes I think if it wasn't for those shirts, we never would have gotten half of those kids. We set up multiple shoot dates to try to be as convenient to people's schedules and promised it wouldn't take very long. Somehow, someway, we got 16 students to show up willing to stand in front of the camera. They even signed the model releases!
The next hurdle for me is the realization that we were probably going to use every person we get. We probably wouldn't have the luxury of choice when it comes to who's in and who's out. This might not seem like much but I've spent the last 7 years shooting hundreds of non-models for big marketing/communications campaigns. This is going to sound harsh but not everybody is built for every photo setup.
It just makes sense to light a person based on their features. It's much smarter to individualize the portrait rather than create a mold that everyone will have to conform to. But in this instance, my job was just that, to create a really good looking mold that can accommodate whoever walks through the door.
The lighting on these shots utilizes mostly soft light sources. The ring light is the modestly priced Alien Bee ABR800 inside the 30" Moon Unit mounted on our Arkay monostand. There are two Chimera Super Pro Plus Strips off to each side flagged with a Westcott black/white collapsible reflector. The white side of the reflector allows a lot of the light to spill back onto the cyc wall allowing for a "controlled contamination" of the blue light. And the background is layered with both a blue gelled bare bulb and a 30 degree grid to provide the lighter halo effect.
So that's the light setup but that's not the end of the shoot. An equally important part of the equation is the choice in lenses. In my mind I wanted to shoot with a wider angle lens to make sure I show the shirts (which were donated by The M Den). But once you add the slightest bit of distortion to your image you are practically guaranteeing that some of your subjects won't look good. And even beyond that, they might actually look quite bad. So in the effort to create a good "One Light Fits All" set, I shot with a 50mm on a full frame body. If you look at the eyes and see the size of the reflection of the ring light, it is dictated by the distance between you and the subject (after you've factored in the modifier). If you want sharp fall off from front to back and big reflections, you have to be close. Move back and you start to flatten out the light and shrink the size of those classic circular shapes in the eyes. There's not a good or bad choice it just comes down to what you want to achieve. For this shoot I wanted them close but not too close, shirts but no distortion. Of my three favorite prime lenses: 35mm, 50mm, & 85mm, the 50 seemed like the right choice.
We were able to spend a pretty good amount of time with each model and some were naturally more comfortable in front of the camera. One of my posing tips on working with non-models is to have a pose that you work towards right off the bat even if you know you won't use it. What does that mean? Start from a very blah test shot and get them into some type of position that requires everything to be moved. Feet at a certain angle, shoulders at a certain angle, hands behind the back, turn the head, big smile, chin down, tilt head, etc. Move everything one way or the other.
The goal is to see how well they take direction and understand how their body moves. Depending on how well you can get them to go from A to B will determine whether C, D, or E are even possible. It might not work for everyone but it certainly has helped me plan my shoots and feel confident I've gotten the best look out of someone.
The post processing was extremely light on all of them. Hardly any retouching other than all of them having a vignette from the ringlight that needed to be cropped out. Let me officially say that I am a post processing freak. I am hyper sensitive to many aspects of a photo that I think should be left alone. One of them is skin texture. I know it's possible to remove all pores and replace it with something akin to a fine sandpaper. I'm just thoroughly creeped out by it.
None of these kids agreed to being heavily 'Shopped and some of them would be strongly opposed I'm sure. So I pretty much leave them 'As Is'. What about pimples? When it comes to blemishes, here's a good rule of thumb for the conservative Photoshopper: If it will still be there a month from now, leave it (or slightly diminish it). Pimples come and go, scars are part of you. So my advice is to talk to your client and make sure they're cool with the glam filter before you apply it.
Looking back, what would I have done differently? Started sooner with more planning. We were practically chasing kids across the diag the night before and we even gave a shirt to a guy just for driving his girlfriend to the studio. Did I mention those shirts were donated by The M Den?