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 made an illustration, can be seen here
http://flic.kr/p/9Er6wx
PS; I prefer the “Pizza”, already have a signed book!
I would say location shoot – use of high powered flash lighting to allow high shutter speed to freeze motion and also to black out the background.
Flash lights set up either side of dancer at equal power but slightly behind the subject. Also the light to the right is lower down (closer to the floor) about thigh level and the light on the left is higher 2 feet higher than head height.
Camera settings as suggested by others 500 / f8.0 (as it is the most likely, but maybe a faster shutter speed due to my earlier theory) but with ISO200 as 400 would be unnecessarily grainy. It would be nice to have more noise in this shot (shot at about ISO800) to give more texture but thats just my personal preference!
No post production except for crop and I think it was shot in colour, so desaturated and a bit of a contrast tweek!
Cheers Chase – better than a sudoku! Tom
Hasselblad Camera for higher sync speed. at least 1/500th
80mm lens.
Prefocused
f/8 or f/11
Two Broncolor strobes equidistant from subject camera left and camera right for split lighting. But positioned slightly behind her. Possibly grid spotted.
Background is irrelevant because of such high shutter speed, ambient light is long gone.
On a side note I find her left leg growing out of her right shoulder distracting but then again I have been watching Zack Arias critiques. haha.
B&W conversion in cs5 or silver efex pro 2.
It is not a “lucky” snapshot. Seems premeditated to me.
Nice.
Have a firm grippy surface with a little give to it for the dancer to work on ie no paper or concrete floor
Dim the lights in the studio
Lighting : 2 strobes w/30 degree grids 6′ behind dancer at about 45 degrees off axis, camera left strobe at top of dancers head height pointed slightly down camera right strobe at front foot height pointed upward
Camera setting: manual, exposure bulb, f11-f16 iso 400.
Direction: Ask dancer to make move, pop flash/ repeat as necessary
Post: develop film, scan, bump up blacks to fill and adjust contrast to taste
Enjoy a hoppy beverage
My .02 http://screencast.com/t/U5sSq6B0y
I have not started playing with light that much but I will as soon as I get Zack’s show watched 😉