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Creating a dramatic portrait can be a very simple task when you use the right tools. In many cases shooting a portrait with drama can be much easier than a traditional portrait.
First off, generally you use less light to create a dramatic feeling in a portrait, and when shooting this type of shot the subject tends to give you more to work with. These types of portraits are more expressive, and tell more of a story in a single image. This is very true when you shoot for a record company; the cover art on the CD has to sell the music, and musician, with a single image.
(Click on any image below for an enlarged view.) |
Topics Covered:
- Choosing a background
- The proper lighting tools
- Camera angles and lenses
- The “split” light
- Contrast and the background light
Equipment Used:
You can click on the blue links below for more info.
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Choosing a Background
To get started we set up our Photoflex Pro Duty Background Support and put a warm toned patterned backdrop on it. We chose this background for several reasons. We wanted a warm overall feeling without distracting colors. This means that the background, the props, and the skin tones are all close in color and tonal value.
With the background in place we started placing lights. Our first placement was the key or main light. For this we chose the OctoDome nxt Kit. We placed it to camera right at about 45 degrees, raised it up to about three and a half feet from the floor and tipped it down toward the subject (figures 1 & 2).
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With our key/main light in place we can bring in the camera and set our exposure. We pulled out the meter and took a few readings. Because we want to create as much drama as we can, we will choose relatively open or low aperture settings to help control our depth of field. The meter readings we got told us to set the camera exposure to 1/200 @ f/3.5, this setting will give enough speed to help stop any action we may chose to have and will give us a very short depth of focus on the shot.
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Our result shot shows the quality of light from the OctoDome to be just what we were looking for. We have a wrapping feel to the light and see all the detail we need, but we're not stopping there. Also note the effects of our focus and exposure settings. |
 Figure 3 |
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Next we added some fill to control the contrast. To accomplish this we brought in the LitePanel Kit. Once we had the reflector kit assembled with the white cover installed, we set to camera left and about three feet back away the subject and took another picture (figures 4 & 5). |
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 Figure 6 |
Our result shot shows better detail on both the subject and the chrome parts of the guitar, but we still have the drama we want. |
The “Split” Light
The next step in building our lighting solution was to add the “split“ light. This is a light that comes from just behind and lights the edge of the subject. To accomplish this we set up a Small HalfDome with a Starlite head and a 500-watt lamp placed on an 2214 LiteStand. Once we had assembled this, we placed it to camera left behind the LitePanel and about five feet from the floor. We then aimed the HalfDome down toward the subject (figures 7 & 8). |
 Figure 9 |
Our results show better separation of the subject from the background and more depth to the lighting pattern. We could stop here and have a great lighting set up to work with from this point to create a CD cover or PR photos of our rock star. |
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Taking it to the next step, we added background lighting to further separate the subject from the background and add more dimension. We set up a Medium HalfDome with a Starlite head and a 1000-watt lamp then placed this assembly onto a 2218 LiteStand. We placed this light on the set camera right, set the height to six feet, and aimed it at the background (figures 10 & 11). |
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Our result shot shows better separation of the subject from the background and more interest with the addition of the background light. We have added more depth to our image without affecting the drama of the shot. |
 Figure 12 |
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When we had everything in place, we were ready to start the shoot. The following are selections of the final photo session. In these shots we played with different focal lengths of our zoom lens to add more drama to the final look (figures 13 - 18). |
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Equipment Used:
You can click on the blue links below for more info.
Recommended Links
- To learn more about Photoflex equipment, go to www.photoflex.com
- For more detailed digital photography lessons, visit
www.webphotoschool.com
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