Studio Photography - Portrait & Still Life Unit 25

Portrait

  My final submission for a studio portrait was originally going to one taken outside with an off camera flash and a bounce reflector but this was dependent on my eldest being in the right place at the right time which he seldom is so it was a non starter. My second idea came from catching a glimpse of Rukudzo off guard in the studio the week previously, when he was at his most natural looking in a casual pose but this relied on him wearing the cap he had on on that day to try and see if we could replicate the pose but I forgot to mention it to him at the time and it was sod's law that he'd be wearing a completely different hat the following week. So then it came down to my third idea which popped into my head the very same morning that Mina mentioned in class that she was going to ask Roman if he'd pose .....yup, I'd simply hang around and assist her in anyway I could in exchange for borrowing her model once she'd finished doing her shoot. 
                         The set up was similar in style to Mapplethorpe's low key background and high key model with the high rear beauty dish being swapped for a low level honeycomb arrangement to act as a hair light even though in my final choice of image it wasn't absolutely necessary as the hood of his jacket provided a perfect contrast to the black background. 

                              
                          I'm quite pleased with the final image and even though a reflector was used at low level to reduce shadowing under the chin etc, my only real disappointment is the slightly burnt out highlights on the the knuckles and to the left of his forehead which I feel could have been avoided by simply reducing the lights intensity or even moving it back a touch on the offending side. 

                                       

                         I did actually try correcting the highlights on the forehead and knuckles within Photoshop but it was hard to detect which skin pattern would appear the most natural when carefully using the clone tool so I decided to stay with what I had and just take it into consideration on future shoots. I'd originally considered going for colour in this portrait as he was sporting blue headphones but I wasn't happy with the frames shot using those so I eventually went back to my old favourite black and white via a gradient layer which also helps a great deal in turning the wrist bands into a less distracting feature. 

Still Life

                         I had a couple of ideas in mind for my still life submission and both were taken from the same studio session. I've chosen to reject this one firstly because I wanted to include a little more colour in my work and secondly because it was too similar in execution to my Canon lens commercial shot, but I wanted to show it because it wasn't all so straight forward as I'd used glycerin to represent water/fridge fresh on the surface which works well but once it's on there you have to take into consideration the possibility of reflections from background sources, even if they are minimal. 

 

                                                

                         I used a low level product table sat on top of a portable fluorescent light case with a deep dish at 45 degrees to the subject and another deep dish set at the side but higher up and shining down to balance out any shadows keep them to a minimum.

                                     

                      I can see in the final image that there is slight blue/green hue to the right of the frame which could probably be removed with some careful PP work but in future I would be more attentive to ensure an even balance of light across the table by perhaps increasing the overhead light intensity  but as a final image I'm quite pleased with how this came out.