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.
Ok, here is my guess.I’m thinking:
-Is it a lucky snapshot?
Definitely not, this a well posed ballerina on a well thought out pose.
-Is it lit?
Definitely Yes.
If so, how?
-I don’t think that you are using softboxes due to the hard edges of the shadows. So, I think that you are using the strobes with grids.
-The camera Settings?
100 ISO, around 1/200th @f/8
-The direction?
Strobes situated low on the floor; possibly two on each side, since the legs are uniformly lit across.
-Post production?
Yes, threw the shadows to black and adjust curves. Desaturated color.
-Whatever details you think are needed to make this image.
My guess is that this ballerina, and the reason I say ballerina is because, not just any model can do splits like that and point her toes like that, she’s in the middle of the floor so you could arrange your lights in front and behind her.
Well, that was my guess. I tried.
Well I guessing there was a camera, some lights and a ballerina, no ballerina for sure. My serious guess is the lighting, probably soft/octabox on her right is coming from about a 45 degree angle from her rear, and another light on her left at about the same angle, this would create the nice shadows that appear on the front of her. Additionally I guess she might be on a stage and you are shooting up at her from the front row area of the facility.
ISO 200
f/10
1/250
2 medium rectangular or square softboxes (or large, depending on distance from subject) left and right and far enough behind her to cause the shadow on the back of her left leg. The light to camera right has about .7 of a stop more juice (or is closer) than the light to camera left and the light on the right is also further behind her than the light to camera left. Mono conversion in Apple Aperture with adjustments to recovery, black point, brightness, contrast, saturation, highlights and mid contrast. Some burning in on the background to kill reflection from the perspex rig. 😉
Perhaps.
Seems lots who are probably more knowledgeable than I have already commented. I guess I may as well say what I think anyway.
There is a light camera right, firing upwards to light the right edges and the underneath
There is a light camera left, firing to the entire side of the dancer, looks like it’s coming from just behind her since it’s not lighting the front of her arm.
I’m going with flash rather than ambient since that would let you get everything else black reasonably easily.
I recall you saying your sync speed with the D3 was something like 1/250, so probably there, with the aperture probably around f11 or f16 since it looks like you’ve got massive DOF.
Compression looks nice so maybe around 70-105mm somewhere?
No it’s not a lucky snapshot, the lighting looks carefully planned, direction? I’d guess after watching a few things you asked her to repeat this a few times… as for post, probably not too much, maybe black point, slight contrast? and the obvious B&W conversion.
ah, I love deconstructing lighting, I always have my friends do this. From what I gather, you [obviously] had two strobes set up, the one to your right being a bit heavier and set farther back than the one on your left, which is probably a bit farther back than straight-to-the-side. The lights are pretty close from what I gather, since her right arm shows lots of back-lighting whilst her left leg and midsection show the source being a bit more forward. Because of this, I believe she performed back and forth between the presumably tall/thin softboxes you had set up.
It was a fast shutter speed with relatively high power on the strobes to compensate. Could be snooted to prevent extra light leak, but I know the settings will already isolate the subject from the background, so you honestly could have shot this against anything. I’d just wager on a stage with the big curtains that are usually there.
Angle, probably standing on the floor in front of the stage (if that was the setup), putting the ground plane at about elbow-height to you, so you’re looking mostly up, probably level somewhere between her right knee and ankle.
not sure whate else to comment on, other than if there was some light hitting the background I know you and the team are MORE than capable of just painting that out, heh.
as a side note, do more live photoshoots so I can sit there and daydream about actually doing this for a living some more!