I learned to light after years of deconstructing the work of other photographers. And I know from your previous feedback that you guys are fond of these posts, so let’s dig into another one.
How did I make this picture?
Is it a lucky snapshot?
Is it lit?
If so, how?
The camera Settings?
The direction?
Post production?
Whatever details you think are needed to make this image.
Looking forward to you trying to pick this apart… I’ll reveal everything in a followup post. The person who gets the closest gets… …a chest bump and a pizza, or signed book or something. Don’t be shy. Let er rip.
i just watched black swan last night, so my guess is you just imagined the whole thing
I am going to go with two strip lights one on camera left probably more behind the subject and one on camera right more to the side of the subject. I am also guessing she is jumping on a trampoline or something like that. Could have been done with cables of some sort to lift her up and be edited out later. If this isn’t right I am going to guess David Blaine.
It’s a two light sandwich, large softboxes.
Camera D3x, 1/250, F8, ISO 100
Aperture only, bumped up some blacks and exposure.
Local contrast adjustments.
Hmm…
My guess… 2 light system… sandwiching the model. Not directly but from slightly behind and below the model. The light sources are either large and close or smaller and far away. If the latter, I’d say possibly bare bulb with large reflectors… better yet. Maybe a couple of strip boxes gridded could do the trick instead. Shooting would be a high F-stop & shutterspeed… like F/13 1/160 or 1/250 sec… something to have the background as dark as possible. Post processing would be a b&w conversion… some clean up on the background to give it proper falloff… and a little burning and dodging at most. ISO would be low… about 200.
Unless you used hot lights… then you could just gel a couple of lights and diffuse them slightly. ISO would have to come up to get the right balance of F-stop/shutter speed.
I wouldn’t say this is a shot that one just lucks into… but then again, I think we make our own luck.
That is exactly what I thought though my articulation isn’t so wordy.
Body is slightly foreshortened, no exaggeration in length of extended leg, so longer focal length (possibly 200+). That would place photographer above subject. F16 at 100 shutter. Subject is either lying on black floor or held by partner removed in post.
OR… POV has been rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise. She is lying on floor, lit from underneath AND above.
Did I forget to say, truly beautiful shot?