Friday, April 6, 2012

Variation on a Rembrandt light scheme in black and white


I had stowed my soft box in a corner of the studio to get it out of the way.  I like to leave everything assembled so I'm ready to shoot.  I raised the box up quite high so as not to bump my head.  When I looked at it, I had the idea that it might be interesting to shine the light close to the face and let everything else fall into shadow.  I thought it might produce an intense focus on  the head and face.

Here is the result.  I rather like it.  I was casting around for wardrobe ideas (one can only wear a black turtle neck about 1000 times before it starts to look repetitious!)  I went to look at wardrobe at one of my favourite portrait photographers Timothy greenfield-sanders  .  I figured he had a lot of people with good taste.  I settled on a black and white scheme, as I wanted the maximum contrast between the subject and the back drop. and I thought the white shirt would lead the eye back to the face.   I increased the light on the shoulder in post and lightened the shadow side of the face a bit.  The Canon 5d mkIII has a lot of leeway in the shadows so that was easy.

The lighting is a variation on the Rembrandt strong side-light scheme, but raised up a fair bit.

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