There's a saying that goes;
every disappointment is a blessing.
To be honest, I don't quite agree with it. Most times, disappointments are just plain out disappointments. Except we find a way to turn it to our favour[that's my name by the way]. Well, this post is about one of those times when something I could probably have been disappointed by turned out good[but I put in a good amount of work too].
Two days ago I had a photo session with Charles Toby, whose aspirations is to become a professional model. He initially wanted only modelling digitals[polaroids], but after that session, he wanted some other portraits. Check out the polaroids here. I obliged to his request for more portraits.
For portraits, I have a particular lighting setup. I usually use a 3-light setup which gives me a subtle dramatic or moody feel to my photographs that I really like.
Here's the breakdown of my lighting setup;
In my studio aside from 2 continuous lights, I have 3 strobes. 2 Godox SK400, and 1 Godox AD600. One of the SK400s is placed in a 120cm Godox Octagon Umbrella softbox, while the other light is placed in a Godox 140cm octagonal Baorong grid softbox. I use a beauty dish on the AD600.
So for my setup/positioning, I place the two sk400s at each side of my subject. That is; one facing the subject from the left, and one facing the subject from the right. The beauty dish acts as a hair light and is placed behind the subject. Aside from lighting up the hair of the subject, the light in that position helps to separate the subject from the background; although I already have ample space. After all these things are in place, I use a reflector to fill in shadows under the neck and also for catchlight in the eyes.
Having placed all these things in their positions, I began shooting in earnest. Lighting was great, and I was getting good images. However, at one point, while shooting, the power went out, and the SK400s didn't fire. So it was only the AD600 mounted from behind that did(because it is battery powered). It was at that point that I was disappointed because I liked the model's facial expression and I couldn't capture it properly. Well, so I thought until I previewed the result. It was really fascinating, although I wasn't amazed instantly.
Well, long story short, I fixed the power outage and we completed the photo session[properly]. The outcome from the session was good that we had a hard time selecting which ones I'll edit. But in the end, we made our choice.
So I'll be sharing the results from the session, starting with the photograph I felt was a disappointment. It is actually my favourite photo from the session.
Here are the photos;
Sometimes, I have a hard time selecting which colour grading variant I'd use. So I end up with several colour variations of the same image.
Here are other colour variations of the photos above;
Post processing on these photos was done on Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom mobile. I used photoshop to work on the skin using a technique called "frequency separation". This helps to blend skin textures, highlights and shadows. After I was done with that, I copied the photos to my phone and color graded the them using Lightroom mobile. Very soon, I'll publish an article about why 99% of the photos I create are colour-graded on my phone. Furthermore, in subsequent posts, I'll teach[run tutorials] on how I achieve amazing colour grades using the app.
Oh! just so you get an idea of how much work was done on the first image, here's the unedited copy;
EXIF DATA
The first photograph in this post would serve as my entry into the @portraitcontest contest. Thanks for putting up this contest.
I'd love to hear what you think about the photos I've shared in this post. If they are good. The areas I could have done better. Basically, just leave a comment about the photos. I'll be glad if you do that.
Thank you for reading! Stay tuned for my next portrait photography article. You can also check me out on Instagram. Leave a follow, and I'll follow right back.