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.
Definitely not a lucky snapshot, and I doubt you made this frame on the first attempt. I’m guessing she had to do this pose quite a few times before you got this 🙂
Lighting – studio shot. She’s standing on plexiglass and you’re shooting up through it (as indicated by the unilluminated area on her right toe). Lit with two lights: a strip box at camera left, at subject’s waist level (aka neck level in the pose), and the strip is placed behind her left leg and off to the left. The second light was a snooted barebulb from low camera right, also placed behind her (and off the the right) to create the edgelighting.
Shot way below available to throw the background into black, probably at f/11 (1/250) at a pretty high power setting on the lights.
Post production converted to BW, using levels to close up the shadows and highlights (dropping the dynamic range of the image and bumping contrast).
1/250 @ F/11 with ISO 200, 3 strobes-back, left and in the front. Count down 3,2,1 and Jump! On stage where she is comfy and added more black to B.G. in post and more contrast for drama!
I think… Strobes, one back left of her, close, large softbox. not as higher power as the one on the right of her, also softbox, closer and directly to her right. Black backdrop obv. f/11 @ 1/500 iso 400. Photoshop crop and curves, monochrome
Nearly the same guess like the others:
black backround, 2 strobes with softbox from the right and the left, she is standing on her toes on plexi above you… and now the clou: you don´t used the fastest sync speed, you just used the flash duration, the shutter speed even doesn´t matter. Of course you had to eliminate all the ambient light…
However, amazing picture!!!
Light is tricky to judge, but I’d guess she was being lit from below either side. She’s jumping forward outside of the beam of light, hence the shadow on her front. There seems to be very little ambient light, so maybe lighting was with theatre spots rather than strobes. Camera settings-wise I guess you’re going to be around f/8 with a fast exposure1/200 or less. Base ISO.
With posing and direction I guess you’d want to see her do her thing first. Choose the movement or shape you like best, then set her up a mark to hit so she’s in the light for the expression you want. No fluke, once you’d seen it a few times you’d know when to fire. Unless this was taken from a live performance, in which case you’d have to judg
IPad mong above sorry. If it was a live performance you’d have to get a feel for how much hang time she gets, so you can judge when to shoot.