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Imagery Studio Charity Shoot
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I attended the Charity Shoot on Saturday and worked with a lovely young model called Gemma McNally. I wanted to try some off camera flash as I have been following the Strobist Blog. I hope these are a little different from my usual type of image. I would welcome you comments. The location was an old industrial site with a number of different back drops available. the weather just about held up for us. It was a real pleasure to meet Thorston, and put a face to the name.
Many thanks John.
I’ll step out and comment a bit here … tho remember this stuff isn’t exactly my fort?! I like the first two. It’s probably just a preferance thing, but I might have looked at healing the lines under her eyes.
I’m not so crazy about the third. The thing for me is the lack of light in her eyes.
She’s got an expressive face and a good natural smile. Credit to you for capturing that.
The location choice looks pretty cool too.
I was wondering how these had been lit! Now I know. Good stuff!
It was great to meet you John. I enjoyed the whole weekend up there and it was certainly worth the 5 hour drive up (and another 5 back!).
If it’s OK with you, I might post a few of my images in your thread so we can just keep a single thread related to the weekend. Don’t know if anybody else is likely to post here though.
Cheers,
Second one for me here John. Absolutely stunning smile from a
gorgeous model. I’d be inclined to leave the lines under the eyes
alone myself, as they are in keeping with the broad smile. If I had
to niggle I’d like to see a tiny bit more light in the eye area (easily
remedied in PS) and a slight toning down of the hotspots along
her shoulders. Aside from those points, it’s a wonderful image.
Very nice work…Rob.
Hi Guys thanks for the comments.
Thorsten That would be great if you posted here, I am not as familiar with the other sites and was not sure where to post. I have some more shots that i will post also asap. How did you get on in the studio on Sunday?
Sometimes I feel as if I carry to much gear with me at these type of events, compared to others. I had my camera bag, a light stand and a tripod.
I used the tripod to mount my off camera flash and a large shoot through brolly, and it was very stable even with the wind i used the ebay triggers and they worked perfectly for a while and then i got some miss-fires. I would like to get some pocket wizards for this job.
I love this type of location shooting, and including the speedlights when necessary, and hope do do lots more in the future. The Strobist blog is just fantastic.
Gemma is only sixteen and she was very easy to work with. I am relatively inexperienced when it comes to working with models, and although I am comfortable enough with the techinical stuff the whole directing bit is something I need more work on. Gemma made the day very easy for me in that respect.
Rob how would you suggest fixing the eyes in photoshop?
Aiden the third shot has a lost feel to it which I like, I am trying to get away from the standard nice expression that i would normally go for. I know it is not flattering for the model but I think it has more emotion that the other shots and makes you ask more questions than the others
Very quick edit John.
Working on a duplicate layer, hold down shift key and draw around the edges of both eyes
to select those areas. Go to Select>Feather and enter a radius of 5 pixels (at this scale anyway).
Create a curves adjustment layer, click on the centre of the line and drag down to lighten
the area selected. It doesn’t matter how bright you go because you can adjust the opacity later…wjklewis wrote:
Thorsten That would be great if you posted here, I am not as familiar with the other sites and was not sure where to post. I have some more shots that i will post also asap.
Cool, thanks John. I didn’t want to just intrude on your post without checking. I’m looking forward to seeing more of your images from the event because I didn’t get out to that location section at all, choosing instead to do some studio work as I don’t nearly do enough of it
wjklewis wrote:
How did you get on in the studio on Sunday?
That’s a fantastic facility you have there, even if it is a little bit on the narrow side. I really envy you having something like that. I commented to Leanne that I’d give my right arm for a space like that myself! I had a great shoot there and got some results that I’m very pleased with but won’t be posting any here due to the nudity restrictions. But I’ll let you know when I have them online elsewhere so that you can see the results I got thanks to your facility!
wjklewis wrote:
Sometimes I feel as if I carry to much gear with me at these type of events, compared to others. I had my camera bag, a light stand and a tripod.
Ha ha, glad to hear I’m not the only one with that problem! I have to say that in spite of the popularity of the strobist way of doing things and the great results it gives, I find myself reluctant to try it out simply because it means dragging around some extra kit. However, a big advantage of doing things the strobist way is that it forces you to work at a slower pace and this will inevitably lead to better results in the end.
wjklewis wrote:
Gemma is only sixteen and she was very easy to work with. I am relatively inexperienced when it comes to working with models, and although I am comfortable enough with the techinical stuff the whole directing bit is something I need more work on. Gemma made the day very easy for me in that respect.
Gemma is a great model and indeed I think all of the models were easy to work with (certainly any of the models I worked with were great). If you’re comfortable with the technical stuff, you’ll find the “whole directing bit” will come a lot easier because you’ll be able to focus your energies on that rather than fumbling about with technical issues. To be honest, the best way to tackle that is simply get out and shoot more. Over time you’ll find the whole process becomes a lot easier and you’ll get a real buzz out of it!
I’ve been so busy since getting home that I haven’t had a chance to do much in the way of producing finished images although I did get three images done. I’ll present them here to contribute to the thread with images.
1.
Laura.2.
Justine.3.
Justine.More to follow in due course.
Three great shots Thorsten, I like the treatment on the third is this cross processed? Do you have an action for this or have you done something in addition to cross processing, would like to know more, I cant get mine to look look this. Is it desaturated in places. the more I look the more I like it.
John.
wjklewis wrote:
Three great shots Thorsten, I like the treatment on the third is this cross processed? Do you have an action for this or have you done something in addition to cross processing, would like to know more, I cant get mine to look look this. Is it desaturated in places. the more I look the more I like it.
John.
John,
I’ve seen this effect used in films such as “Saving Private Ryan” and the TV series “Band of Brothers” and wanted to be able to recreate it in my own images so I set about researching it. It’s a technique called Bleach Bypass and it does exactly what it says on the tin (i.e., they skip the bleaching part of the process when processing the film). Jeremy Daalder describes one way to recreate the look in Photoshop on his blog in “Simulating Classic Film Effects in Photoshop” There are a few different ways of doing this and I’m still exploring the options.
Another effect I’d like to play with which is very similar to this is to get the look that was used in the film “300”. Still researching that one though :wink:
As with all special effects like this, it’s so easy to go overboard with them and they need to be used with care. It’s easy to get carried away with them. But I guess it’s no different to using things like cross processing, Lensbabies, fish eye lenses, Holga’s and Lomo’s – eventually the unfamiliar becomes too familiar you’re just using the effect for the sake of it.
Will post a few more images from the shoot here later.
Cheers,
Thorsten.
John, funny enough given Aidan’s comments about liking the first 2, I actually think the 3rd is the pick of the crop. It just works in mho. I’m not a fan of the grey framing finish on the first, but it’s good to experiment… :lol: I hope you enjoyed the day. Like yourself, I also had a load of gear although I didn’t bother using the stands and ebay triggers. I regret not doing so now.
I didn’t walk around enough either – obviously there were models and photographers all over the place, and I certainly didn’t shoot as many models as others did. In fact there are photos of models on folio32.com that I didn’t even know were there at all……!! But it was a most enjoyabale venture, to meet so many like minded photographers and to have the opportunity to shoot willing subjects in the outdoors. Can’t wait for the next one.Thorsten – very skilled composition in all 3. I also like the ‘finish’ in the last 2 as well. I think I prefer the way you are now putting your signature on the images. Not as intrusive as some of the previous, but does the job it was intended to.
Ross
John, my preference goes also to the second one, nice and natural smile illuminating the photo.
On the first one, the t-shirt falling on the shoulder is strange and IMO does not look good.
On the third one, I do not really like the expression, it looks kind of too serious. And the position of the eyes is, for me, too much on the edges, so we see too much white of the eyes.Thorsten, the picture of Laura is classic and well realized.
For the pictures of Justine, I regret a bit the black straps of the bra. I like the composition in the third with the branches in the first plane and the wall on thge right closing the image.
Nice shots!Three more from the event, this time with a glamour shot thrown in for good measure :wink: I’ve probably gone a little overboard on the very first one and have to give it a rethink on how best to approach it in terms of finishing it.
1.
Justine.2.
Carolynna.3.
Chaz.Ross – might we look forward to some images from your good self here too at some stage? :wink:
Thorsten wrote:
Ross – might we look forward to some images from your good self here too at some stage? :wink:
Here ya go….(since you asked nicely?!) :P
John, Thorsten and Ross I have been following this thread and am really enjoying it especially with such a high quality of pictures from the 3 of you. As is the norm I unfortunately feel Ihave to pick a favourite which would probably be Ross’s second picture I think it is great the reason is the girls smile is brilliant and DOF etc seems to be spot on. You all had a great selection of models to pick from and its no wonder the quality is so good.
Keep them coming .
Soda
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