Location Assignment: Firehouse Portraits
- Intro
- The Lesson Plan
- The Shoot
- Setting up a Small OctoDome® with Accessory Grids
- The Lighting Combination
- Converting to Black and White
- Final Results
- Summary
- Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III
- MacBook Pro 15'' Laptop
- HalfDome® nxt: small
- OctoDome: small
- OctoDome® Grid: small (3 foot)
- Photoflex® Strobe Connector: ProFoto
- ProDuty BackDrop Support Kit
- Profoto 7b Portable Power Pack
- Profoto Acute 2400
Topics Covered:
Camera/Media
Lighting Equipment
Intro |
Setting up a Small OctoDome® with Accessory Grids |
Next, I chose to utilize the small OctoDome® accessory Grids. The Grids make the small OctoDome® focus the light on the subject. Attaching the Grids is also easy, as they simply Velcro® on to the front of the face. |
Figure 6 |
Here's a look at the light once it was all set up. Notice that you can see right through the Grids to the silver and gold panels since I removed the diffusion faces. [Figure 6] |
The Lighting Combination |
Here's a bird's eye view illustration of the general equipment positioning of the set. [Figure 8] |
Figure 8 |
Converting to Black and White Shown here are examples of the portraits as shot, and then final retouched results. As you can see, I converted the images from color to B&W, increased the contrast, and added a film grain effect in Photoshop. I do this with a lot of my work, as I am a film lover. I greatly miss shooting with film and this is my solution to maintaining the look of film with my digital photographs. Note the specular highlights, as I previously mentioned, and how the light on the subjects is focused, with a hard, contrasty look. [Figure 9] |
Figure 9 |
Next I duplicate this layer and change the opacity of that layer to "Multiply." [Figure 14] |
As you can see, this enhanced the lighting from the shoot and also allowed me to darken some of the buttons that were too bright and highlight the fireman's helmet better than in the previous layer. |
Following these steps, I make a new layer, which I make an "Overlay" layer and check off the 50% gray check box. Once again, I paint in the highlights and shadows with a soft brush at 6%, white for highlights, and black for shadows. I find this is the equivalent to dodging and burning in the darkroom, but even better as you can zoom into the image so easily. Next I flatten the image and use JB's Smart Sharpening Action to sharpen the image, and finalize with Imagenomic's RealGrain Film Filter which mimics the film grain of Kodak Tri X 400. Finally, if necessary, I use an exposure adjustment layer and increase the exposure to pop the highlights. Final Results |
Figure 16 |
Figure 17 |
Figure 18 |
Figure 19 |
Figure 20 |
In sad news, Gerry Seager, shown above here, passed away of natural causes this past summer, 2011. |
Summary |