You know I love to deconstruct a photo. And I know from your previous feedback that you love it to, so let’s dig into another one.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. It’s always been one of the most helpful technical exercises throughout my career to try to dissect the images of others, and so here I am encouraging you to take your shot at this image today. (If you want to check out some previous versions of this exercise, check here and here.)
So now tell me–yes YOU–how in the hell was this shot made? Overexposed mess? Studio shot? Test shot? A masterpiece? How’s it lit? The circumstances? The camera settings? Tricks? This one is a bit more abstract than previous shots, so I’m dying to have you pick it apart. Especially the purists.
I’ll reveal the details in a followup post. The person who gets the closest gets a signed book and a shout out and whatever else I can muster. Don’t be shy. Love to hear your thoughts.
One hard light is hitting the player and background from above and behind(causing hard shadow of a chin on the shoulder and shadow of a ball on the face). That flash is probably short-snooted, leaving a hard shadow on a background. Another hard light is pointed at the ball from high right, lighting the ball and the player’s back and nose.
The player is lit by two hard lights, one high to the left and behind him, the other high to the right and only very slightly behind him. One of these lights could be the sun, hard to tell.
The background light does not come from the shutter curtain cutting off the light because the shadow section does not have a straight edge. I suspect this is the shadow from a wide reflector or beauty dish that is attached to the left light or there could be a flag. Could also be the shadow of house eve or awning if one the lights is the sun but again would expect a straighter line for this.
However, the brightness of the light on the soccer ball and his left hand from the right hand light don’t seem to match with the light on his shirt, left cheek and nose. One possibiliy is that this light has be feathered to produce a graduated intensity from the one light.
Lots of contrast going on in post and I still can’t quite guess what- in the real world – that background texture is, but as other have said, I’ve seen PS filters that look similear.
two flashes: one pointed directly at the wall which is lighting the talent then one high above hitting the ball. the high contrast gritty effect was done by shooting at a very high iso
Hey,
Two flashes: One on the background, flagged to get the shadow on top of the image. The model is lit by the reflection of the background an is close to the background.
The second flash is on a boom or high stand coming from above the model camera right (about 45 to 60°). The ball is closer to the light and therefore hotter than the model.
Then the contrast was cranked up in post production.
Looks like a studio shot. Ball suspended from above. Three light sources. Backdrop lit from below with spot light low and barn door to make hard horizontal line on backdrop. Spot (with snoot?) from right/upper onto ball. Third light from lower left into chest of player. Exposure adjusted to face of the player. Would guess this was not a test shot but an abstract planned harsh lighting shot. Very cool.