Relax

Probably the last one from this series that I'll post... this one is growing on me. It definitely works better in black and white. I love the contrast along the underside of her right arm, and I love where her left hand is. I keep looking at this one... there's something mysterious and unidentifiable that draws me in.

Same four light setup as on the others (beauty dish + 3 grids).

Focus

This is a square crop of "Focus" converted to high contrast black and white. I really like the color versions of these but this one in particular I think lends itself to B&W and a square crop. The B&W forces you to deal with shape and tone and contrast and the square crop further enforces the symmetry.

Again, four lights... beauty dish + three grids. I did the B&W in Aperture after touchup in Photoshop (I prefer to do as much as possible in Aperture because it changes no pixels).

I've also done a high-key version of this, shown here. I think I prefer the darker, higher contrast version, but the high-key has its own appeal. I like the silver hair and the barely detectable outline of the face. The high-key treatment was done in Photoshop so I could preserve some contrast on the eyes, lips, and brows.

Low Key

This is one of my favorite images from my shoot with Rebecca. I was definitely going for an old-Hollywood kind of look and I planned to go B&W. This was done with three grids (two 10's and a 20). I've done shots like this before but I didn't do as much lighting. What make this shot for me are the accent light on her hair and the background. I think the image would be much less interesting without the accent from behind.

Blogging Here Again

I think this will be my photoblog of choice from now on, so I'm catching up with a few images from the last few months. I'd like to post images along with some discussion of how they were created, as well as other photo-related posts. But mostly I'll focus on images.

Soft

This is a pre-post-production image from a recent shoot with a local model-hopeful. This was done with four lights... a beauty dish provides the key light on the model and three grids round out the lighting... two grids on the model and one on the background.

I'm learning that I really like lighting with grids. Grids give you alot of control and you can really "construct" lighting. I find it easier to achieve three-dimensional images by constructing light with grids than bathing the subject in softboxes. The beauty dish lent a quality to the image that I've not gotten any other way so far.

I have a lighting diagram for this shot on Flickr... click the image to visit the photo on Flickr, there's a link to the diagram in the description.

Steve Parsons B&W #2

A second shot from the same shoot. This is probably my favorite, I love the tones and the pose.

Steve Parsons #3

This was a promo shot for a musician friend. I shot this with two lights, a medium softbox on the subject and a grid on the background. A little saturation and dodge/burn layers made the colors and local contrast really pop.