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.
My guess is a fast shutter speed 1/500 with a 200 ISO. Probably a f/11.
Two strobes with soft box. One main light on the left of the ballerina, 45 degree higher then her head and 45 degree left to create the beautiful Rembrandt effect. A fill light on the right 2 f-stop less then the main. This light lower then the ballerina.
The background is far so you can’t see it.
You are on a ladder or something in order to be at her jump level.
You turn the picture black and white in post production and maybe increase a little bit the shadow.
I love this pic!
Here´s my guess ( w/o reading all the posts before, since I don´t want to cheat myself):
Photo is taken on Stage or in the Studio. You didn´t need a black background, since you were using a very small aperture (f11 or even higher), which blackened the background completely. To get the jump of the dancer frozen & to avoid any motion blur but still retaining the sync speed of the Broncolors (for fast recycle time & shooting), you set the shutter speed to 1/250.
For the lighting you have chosen two softboxes 90° set apart form each other behind the subject. You ran both lights with the same power output. The softboxes were necessary to get the light wrapping around the face and to avoid to harsh shadows and retain more detail in the shadows.
The lens you used was either the 50mm or the 85mm. Anything more tele (like 100 or 200mm) would have involved the risk to get any blur since you were not able to use a tripod, because you had to follow the jump of the dancer with your camera to click the shutter in the right moment. While the 85mm would have caused a compression of the dancer you went with the 50mm, which is also stretching the legs a bit better.
Postprocessing was very little necessary, since the background was black already. So you only had to apply a crop to the picture.
That´s my guess…
Beautiful shot.
I think it was a little bit of luck and preparation ahead of time. The way she is poised definitely suggests to me that she is in mid jump and not just well balanced and you are shooting underneath a piece of glass as some comments would suggest. If this is not the case, then well done sir.
It is lit with 2 main light sources on either side of the dancer. I would hazard a guess that both were point sources.
The meta properties said it was a 35mm lens, I would guess a high shutter speed like 200th of a second at f22? Perhaps an ISO of 100 or 200 (really strong light source ^^)
Direction? Do a grand jete?
Post production was probably some cropping, b&w, maybe play with the contrast too.
Special notes, no backdrop needed, the high f-stop and fast shutter will black out the background. She may need the space to make the jump anyways.
Eagerly awaiting the answer post!
Hi Chase,
Thank you for another installment of the “Deconstruct This Photo” series. Here is my guess as to what might have happened behind the scene:
– First of a beautiful ballerina happened for sure
– I think that this shot was done on a stage
– Background – I don’t think a background was necessary with the fast shutter speed and also if the distance subject to background was not limited.
– My guess is you shot from a lower vantage point and the ballerina was jumping in the air
– The camera was probably Nikon D3x
– The shutter speed was fast, maybe in the range of 1/200 of a sec to eliminate any ambient light
– The f-stop was smaller for larger depth of field as the subject was moving, f11 or smaller
– The lighting – I think it was strobe lighting to freeze the subject in motion. There were two main strobes. The first one was positioned on camera left, behind the subject and turned slightly towards the camera and up to create a beautiful short lighting pattern on her face, with a little Rembrandt triangle on her left cheek/eye without overspilling on her hair. The second main strobe was positioned on camera right also behind the subject and turned slightly towards the camera. Modifiers for these two strobes – it could have been bare bulbs with bigger distance to have more spread and coverage as she is lit from head to toe evenly or the strobes could have had large soft boxes and I am leaning more towards the soft boxes (maybe strip boxes). And finally I am thinking about a third light source, which I am not absolutely sure about. There are some ifs but if the main strobe on camera left had a strip box and was missing the back leg then there would have been another light to cover that, however if the light modifier was wider on this strobe, then the spread was bigger and there was no need for another light. Also the same case is with the light that I see on the inside of the ballerina’s right hand. It was probably hit by the main strobe on camera right and the hand is more in front of the body than it looks from this angle.
– Post Production – probably converted to black and white, pushed the blacks and contrast to exaggerate even more the effect created with lighting.
Enough with the guessing, thanks again and I am looking forward to seeing what actually happened for this shot to be.
Great work!
First of all, I would like to congratulate you for this beautiful picture. Also I wanted to say I’m a fan of your work, and that I have been following your blog, and the work you do, since you were published as a Hasselblad Master. Also I want to thank you for your countless contributions of your experiences, and work with the photography world. Not to mention, you have a hell of a amazing team!
For this picture, I have two guesses:
Camera used: Nikon D3s
Lens: Super Tele: 200-400mm f/4
this could be a snapshot taken while the ballerina was rehearsing, shot 20 feet back from the room she was in. Maybe at the same level, maybe a little below her.
There’s a black backdrop/ curtain behind her.
The lighting was set from both sides as hot lights/ continuous, to light the stage.
Camera settings? I’d say 500/sec to 1000/sec ISO 400-800 or even higher like 1600 at f/11
there was some post production. Shot in color, and changed to BW.
My second guess, would be:
Camera: Nikon D3s again (Best camera ever by the way)
Settings: 250/s ISO 400 f/11
Lens: 85mm f/1.4
Shot from below the ballerina, closer to the stage/studio
backdrop was either a black curtain, or blackdrop.
There were 3 SB-900 flashes, one coming from the right of the subject, maybe a little behind her and two other from the left of the subject. Maybe using umbrellas.
SHot in color. Some post production.
Anyways, that is just a guess. Good job!