Shooting a high key portrait of three people is difficult with just two flashes especially when you want to light up the background white. Typically a portrait is done with a key light (the main light) and a fill light to fill the shadows cast by the main light. Add the want to have a completely white back drop (which gives me the ability to do channel masking to separate the subjects from the backdrop or introduce my own backgrounds if I wanted to) and you need a third. Because i shot this before I got my two 580EX II flashes I had to figure something out.
Here is the setup (above) with my Nikon SB-28 key light on a stand with an umbrella mount. I diffused the light with a diffuser before it hits the shoot though umbrella to further soften the light. As I was shooting young ladies I needed the softest possible light. On the step you can see I used a white balance card to get all the lights colour balanced and even using CTO gels over the flashes.
You maybe wondering why I went to the trouble of gelling the lights and colour balancing for black and white photos, but there were some colour ones selected for the final print run. Above is my Nikon SB-24 clamped to a shelf in the garage facing the white wall (I thank the house’s builders for that) with my homemade snoot/flag with a silver backing to spread the light, but also to flag the light from the camera to prevent any lens flare. Both lights were triggered with my modified Gadget Infinity wireless triggers and I was happy with their reliability during the shoot as I only got a 1 in 20 misfire and I think mainly because I was working faster than the flashes recycle time.
The main reason for gelling the lights was to match the colour temperature of the halogen work lamps I used to fill the shadows. Even though the globes were rated daylight colour balance they still hovered in the 4000k range which was too warm for the flash’s 5600k. I had these reflecting of a foam core board I got from an art store clamped to a light stand to diffuse the light. I set all the flashes power to suit the output of the work lamps and resulted in a shutter speed around 1/60th of a second, just adequate for hand holding the camera with the type of lens I had mounted (Tamron 17-50mm f2.8).
Post production was relatively simple and repeatable which is important in portrait photography. I brought the clients inside to view the images on a Plasma TV with the HDMI output out my Canon 50D, which is super handy and the quality is outstanding (and surprisingly colour accurate). They made a short list of favorite images so I could make adjustments to their selections without wasting time on all of the images shot.
Next was import all the images into Adobe Lightroom to do all the RAW adjustments and create a proofing slideshow for the client to review their selections in greater detail. I always show the image file numbers on the slideshow to make print ordering as simple as possible for both the client and myself. Its simple, its fast and its cheap. The client then emails me back their final print selections after reviewing the price list and then I make any further adjustments if needed then I can further edit the images in Photoshop.
Each image has selective skin softening, selective sharpening on the eyes, nostrils, teeth & hair, teeth & eye whitening, clone out any blemishes, smooth out the tonal range to avoid harsh shadows and then finally a subtle diffusion layer to soften the entire image. The finals are then saved as an uncompressed TIF file and sent to my pro lab for printing.
Over time I’ll be developing my outdoor and environmental portraits to add a bit more of an edge. For enquires feel free to email me marcel at mvphotography dot com dot au.