Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“I have always had an instinct for doing new things. Call it good or bad, I love to experiment.”— Ravi Shankar
I believe that Mr. Shankar’s above statement applies to photography too, including boudoir or intimate portraiture where it’s all too easy to place a subject in “Pose A”, then move onto “Pose B,” making the whole process so mechanical that R2D2 could shoot this kind of portrait.
But that’s not what your intimate portraiture subjects want. They want a portrait of themselves that’s different from the last one you made and especially one that captures their individuality or essence. The same goes for your lighting.
I once helped out a friend who wasn’t able to photograph his high school senior customer because he was ill. (I’m not sure he was happy with what I did because he recovered really quickly.) Before getting started, one of the studio’s assistants showed me their lighting system which was on rails and featured a series of strings tied to the light heads with knots representing different subject-to-light distances. I assumed these were used to maintain a consistent lighting ratio but you don’t have to do it that way. And I don’t do it that way either.
Today’s featured portrait of Colleen Brianne was made with the model posing in the doorway to my home studio and here’s how I made it…
How I made this portrait: For certain kinds of portraits, you can sometime get by by using just one light—no strings required. In fact a famous local photographer once told me that he preferred using on one light.
For this portrait I started with a Broncolor two-light Senso Kit 22 that includes a Senso A2 (1200 Joules) power pack, two Litos flash heads, speed ring, 28×28-inch softbox, 16.4-foot sync cable and a well-made case. For the setup above, I used a single Broncolor Litos head with a 28-inch Broncolor softbox that was placed at camera left and aimed directly at the subject. No reflector. If you have time, read what I have to say about using softboxes here.
The camera used was a Canon EOS ID Mark II N and EF 135mm f/2.8 SF lens. Lighting was metered using a Gossen Star F and, as always, I typically shoot a few test shots to get one that produces the best exposure and best looking histogram. Final exposure was 1/60 sec at f/10 and ISO 100. The image file was retouched and then tweaked with Color Efex Pro to produce the result you see.
If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to buy Joe a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), click here.
My book Joe Farace’s Glamour Photography is full of tips, tools and techniques for glamour and boudoir photography with new copies available from Amazon for $33.80 as I write this. Used copies are starting at the hard-to-beat price price of twenty-three bucks with the Kindle version at $19.99 for those who prefer a digital format.