Simple steps to a gritty portrait using 2 Profoto D1 Air Strobes.
Before you accuse me – I am not that narcissistic it’ s just that I regularly test the set- up in my studio by photographing
myself as part of the process. Today I
had a client who wanted a gritty portrait of himself so how better to get prepared than by practicing on myself? Fortunately he was late in arriving so I had more time to play and perfect the lighting setup. Here’s how it went….
I began with a single key light – a Profoto D1 Air 500 fired
through a vertical Wescott 3’x1’ strip soft-box placed slightly above and to my
right about 45 degrees. The kind of location you would use if you were seeking
the traditional Rembrandt lighting look.
I regularly shoot at 1/160 sec at ISO 100 – I find that this
enables my black cloth background to stay fairly black. I then try to crank up
the lights enough to produce at least f6.3, if not higher, while trying to avoid any light
spilling onto the background.
I measured the flash from the key ;ight at f7.1 but wanted
to achieve a brighter highlight effect while getting some detail into the
shadow side of my face so I shot at f6.3 using a 50mm prime f1.4 Sigma lens held
on a tripod about three feet away from my face.
The initial shot still lacked some detail in the shadows so
I introduced white reflector about 18 inches to the left to bounce some of the
light from the Profoto strobe back into the left side of my face. I used white rather than silver as I wasn’t
looking for a massive amount to be
bounced back just enough to lift the shadows.
I then took a couple more test shots and saw that the top of
the cap was not getting emough light and there was no separation from the
background.
A second Profoto D1 was fired from the right angled upwards into a white reflector placed directly above my head to bounce light back down and light the cap. I had to play with the angle and employ a sheet of black aluminum foil to stop any light from this second Profoto from spilling onto the background.
This second Profoto Strobe ( a D1 250 Air) was set at its lowest power setting of 4.
This two light and two reflector set-up took just a few
minutes and hardly any tweaking to produce the
First gritty self portrait
below.
The Technicals
Equipment used and technicals.
Key Light: - Profoto D1 Air 500 set at 9.0
F7.1 from 8 feet 45 degrees to right and fired from slightly above through
a Wescott 3’x1’ strip soft-box.
Fill Light: – Profoto D1 Air 250 set at 4.0 fired upwards
into a white circular reflector paced directly above the subject.
White circular reflector placed 18 inches to the left of the subject’s
face
Camera: – Canon 5d Mk11
Lens: - Sigma 50mm
f1.4
Exposure: ISO 100 – F.6.3 1/160 second set in Manual mode.
Triggers: – Air one controller on Camera Hot-shoe. Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 receiver connected to camera remote trigger socket
Sekonic 558R Flash hand-held to remotely trigger camera
through the Pocket Wizard and to measure the flash output of the lights.
Time to set-up six minutes
Image cro edited in Photoshop CS6 and On-One Perfect
Suite 7 Plug-in to enhance contrast and texture.
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