7 Comments, Add Your Own

1. 1Steel Photo says

   April 7, 2009 at 6:23 am

   Very dramatic photo.

   I am guessing that the image posted has had little to no post processing as per your usual.

   I do have to comment that the particular look of that photo with the colors and light drop off has the modern lomo type processing looks that seems to be one of the photography rages today. Although, most of the people I know doing that actually use photoshop to do it.

   Its nice to see other styles of your photography.

   Thanks for another great read.

   Reply

2. 2Neil says

   April 8, 2009 at 8:34 am

   Hi there Jeff ..

   This image did see some work in post-production.

   Firstly I pushed up the saturation and contrast, and made a slight adjustment on the exposure, as well as crop the image slightly to go from a 3:2 to 4:3 aspect ratio. … all of this in ACR and Bridge.

   Then in Photoshop I cloned out a piece of metal pipe in the corner … and then I also touched up some minor skin blemishes as is usual with portraits. I also removed some specular reflections on her legs.

   Then through a series of actions in Photoshop, I punched the image up a bit.

   Neil vN

   Reply

3. 3Pat says

   April 9, 2009 at 10:19 am

   Lovely image Neil!

   I had not thought of using a video light for boudoir on location before but can see the obvious benefits :-)

   I’m curious why you only tried bounce flash and not triggering it remotely?

   Although I can see the advantage of WYSIWYG of video over a flashgun.

   Reply

4. 4Neil says

   April 9, 2009 at 11:05 pm

   Hi there Pat,

   The main reason why I didn’t use umbrellas or softboxes (with pocketwizards and lightstands), is that I left all that at home.

   I kept my lighting gear to a minimum, since I knew I’d only be using available light, or video light, or a little bit of bounce flash.

   When I scouted the location, I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of space to move around in and set up lighting gear. But my biggest consideration in not using flash with softboxes, etc .. was that I wanted to shoot fast, and have the models move around a little. This would free us all up from static set-ups.

   But the most important consideration in using video light is that it is WYSIWYG. My assistant, my daughter, knows how to hold the light and follow the model’s movement. So when a model changes the positioning of her head a little, my daughter can follow her gesture with the video light .. and keep the same lighting pattern on the model’s face.

   So let’s say I want a loop lighting pattern on her face .. then my assistant can follow the model’s movement, and keep that lighting pattern fairly consistently.

   You would have a harder time doing this with flash, because you can’t immediately see the result in changing the position of your lighting when you use a minimalist lighting set-up with a speedlight and a softbox.

   It is that direct feedback with video light (since it is continuous light), that makes it so useful when shooting under tungsten lighting conditions.

   Neil vN

   Reply

5. 5Andrew says

   April 11, 2009 at 11:00 am

   Neil,

   You need to use that as your promotional shot for your workshops :)

   Fundy

   Reply

6. 6Jonathan says

   May 24, 2009 at 7:27 am

   Hi Neil,
   Great work. What about color temperature of ambient light mixing with video light ?
   How to color correct ?

   Reply

7. 7Neil says

   May 24, 2009 at 10:19 pm

   Jonathan, in this instance, I made sure to keep the model’s back towards the daylight color balanced areas, and light up the opposite side with video light … which is also the same as the lighting in the interior of the room.

   It would be much harder work getting a good-looking image of the model with two completely different color balanced light sources shining on her.

   So in this instance I didn’t have to “correct” for the white balance .. I just kept it to Tungsten WB and then touched it up a little in post-processing to keep it warm.

   Neil vN

   Reply