03.06.11
Your Ultimate 2011 Technique Guide: Portraits
Brian shows you how to add vibrancy and depth to your portrait shots.
INSPIRATION
The pitch from Time magazine was as good as I’ve ever heard. They wanted to photograph Sir Richard Branson in a spacesuit for a story about his new Virgin Galactic space flights. He was immediately on board with the idea and offered his private island in the Caribbean as a location for our shoot.
GETTING THE SHOT
From the moment I landed on Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands I was on the lookout for a location. When shooting portraits on location, an environmental portrait is about both the person and the place, so I always search out the most interesting place to shoot. I scouted the island by boat and on land until I found the perfect spot. That evening at dinner I convinced Branson that dawn’s first light would be the perfect time to shoot, and he agreed meet at his boat at 5am so we could be ready to shoot at sunrise. We took Branson’s boat out to the sandbar, got him into the spacesuit and then shot for about an hour, beginning with first light. This shot is all about location and the spacesuit, so once we had him in place and lit, everything else came together easily. I shot the image using Profoto Acute 600B strobes, blended with the early-morning daylight on a Hasselblad H1 with an HC 35mm f/3.5 lens and a 33MP Leaf Aptus 75S digital back. For me the sign of a great shoot is when your subject asks for more. After breakfast, Branson asked if I would do a shot of him relaxing with his son and daughter at the main house, which seemed like a suitable way to wrap up a perfect shoot. The shot of Branson in a spacesuit ran that spring as the opener to a big Time magazine piece on Virgin Galactic and has since been seen on magazine covers across the world.
POST-PRODUCTION
I always shoot RAW in order to maintain every bit of data from image capture. My post-processing begins with a rough edit, then the images are renamed and metadata, like the caption and copyright notice, is batch applied to every image. I use Lightroom to do batch colour adjustments to all images. At this point I get colour to about 90% of the final look, so that clients see a web gallery of my selects that is close to the final look of the images. For this particular setup, I gave a slight increase to vibrance and clarity (midtone contrast), and the blue in the sky and water were deepened slightly by lowering the blue luminosity, which is a nice trick that keeps saturated colours within the gamut that can actually be reproduced in print. A slight vignette is also added, giving the images a slight edge burn. Next a web gallery was created in Lightroom. This saves time because you don’t waste any effort switching between programs to create and upload a web gallery. Once I have my editor’s final selects, I start on the final high-res images. Every file gets a final adjustment in Lightroom and then images are processed as full-size 16-bit PSDs in ProPhotoRGB colour space, because it’s the largest colour space available and the closest thing to maintaining the gamut of RAW. The final retouch is done in Photoshop on layered PSDs. Those working files are then batch exported as flattened 8-bit Tiffs using Dr Brown’s 1-2-3 image processor plug-in for Adobe Bridge. In this step, I also convert the images to ColorMatch RGB because it’s the closest thing to CMYK and it gives you a good pre-visualisation of how the images will print. No final sharpening is applied: it’s rarely needed, but if it is, you only want to apply it at the final size and resolution.
Chris tells you how to manage a range of contrasts across your images.
INSPIRATION
The British actress Sofia Hayat asked me to shoot the cover of her book Dishonoured. So I shot lots of pictures with different outfits, some against a white background to give the client a choice. At the end of the session we decided to shoot some pictures for fun in her swimming pool. Sofia is a beautiful woman, very elegant and natural, so I wanted to capture that side of her and this frame (above) really stood out. I flipped it upside down to give the idea we are in the water looking up to the surface.
GETTING THE SHOT
The shot developed out of trust. We kept it until last because the make-up she had on wasn’t waterproof and we only had 10 minutes to shoot in. This shot really stands out for me; in many ways there are lots of things wrong with it, like it being upside down, but I love it regardless. I think it really captures Sofia’s depth of character. The light is natural on the right-hand side of her face, with a small fill light running across the surface of the water from left to right. I used a fill light to reduce the contrast across the image as a whole so the camera could see all the tones in the image. Cameras have latitude that they can see, so if you don’t want to shoot an HDR image you have to control the light. I shot it through a 3m x 2m scrim to soften the light right down. I nearly always shoot on aperture priority and flip the wheel to change it, as I want to get a load of different looks from the same shot. I like the f/1.2 lens I was using, but I was shooting a moving target, so I flipped it to f/1.8 to make sure there was a little more depth of field to play with. It was shot on a Canon EOS-1Ds MkIII with the 85mm f/1.2 lens. F/1.8 lighting was a flash head through a scrim to soften it and on really low, so it just lifted the darks slightly. The scrim was reflecting into the scene too, further reducing the contrast a little.
POST-PRODUCTION
I flipped the picture and also increased the contrast, which is something I find I have to do with all digital shots. I put in a bit of an ‘S’ shape on the green curve so there was a little magenta in the bass and green on the high notes. Apart from that, I removed any bright or dark spots of detail that would distract the eye from Sofia’s face.
Ian explains how to use natural light to keep your portraits simple.
INSPIRATION
This photo started out as a quick test shot for my stepson Cameron Irwin; he wanted me to take some photos of him, to see if he could obtain some modelling work.
GETTING THE SHOT
When I turn up to a shoot, wherever I happen to be, I’ll have a look around for some nice light coming through a window. Funnily enough, only last week I hired a studio in which to shoot an author, but in the end I never used the studio. I decided to do the shoot in the hallway leading up to the studio, as the light coming through the window was too good to leave out. I ended up squashed against a wall in a hallway and the studio left empty. This is how I work; I much prefer daylight to studio lighting any day. So, for this shot I stood Cameron just inside the French windows in my living room where I knew the light was great, as I have shot actors such as Orlando Bloom in this position in the past. I didn’t really expect to get anything out of this shoot as we were just messing around to see if Cameron would be photogenic enough for the occasional bit of modelling. But the photo ended up being nominated in the International Photography Awards.
TECHNIQUE
My technique is to keep it simple; I’ve always lived by this motto. I hate to see things too contrived. A lot of the time I don’t even have a reflector, just a window, the subject, me and a camera. I think too many photographers make things difficult for themselves and go out of their way to complicate things without realising it. I like to turn up with my camera, look for a window and get the shot done. I always set my camera the same way, f/4 at whatever speed I can get away with, usually 1/60sec or hopefully above and my ISO is usually between 400 and 1000 due to the natural light.
POST-PRODUCTION
I usually start post-production with a quick look at the photos in Lightroom. I do an edit and then open the images that I need in Photoshop. I don’t export them from Lightroom into Photoshop, because it’s just not the same and you get different results. I shoot in RAW, so I’ll open the photo in Photoshop’s RAW plug-in; I may adjust the exposure, but that’s all. After I open my chosen image in Photoshop with the exposure I want, I then have a good look over it to see if there are any unwanted dust marks and then look for any spots or stray hairs. I don’t go mad in Photoshop, though, as I hate to see work over-retouched. I like to keep my work as natural as possible. I hate to see images that are all smooth; I call it ‘The Barbie Effect’. People have pores, so I like to keep it real. To get the photo ready for print, I’ll sharpen the image with the unsharp mask tool and save it either as a Tiff or a Jpeg.
GEAR
I used my old Canon EOS-1Ds MkI for this shot. I wanted to see if it was still worth keeping and up to the job. I used the camera with my favourite 100mm f/2.8 lens. I use this lens for practically everything. The image was shot at ISO 400, at f/4 at 1/60sec.
James tells you how to give your close-up work punch while ensuring a realistic look and feel.
INSPIRATION
This shot was a joint creative process with a make-up artist. It was to be used as a showpiece and as a magazine talking point over a new style of make-up in use at the time. I wasn’t working for a client as such, but the image was used as part of a regular feature demonstrating techniques and styles.
GETTING THE SHOT
This image was taken in a studio in north-west England. I work on my own a lot, but this time I had an assistant. The make-up was supplied by a MAC Cosmetics make-up artist. I always light my shots as simply as possible. I wanted a realistic look to the model, but the idea was for her to be a little aloof or to look down on us and what we were doing. Small movements are needed when you are shooting this close.
TECHNIQUE
The secret to this shot is the crop, although I always leave more around the shot which leaves the creative people I work with a chance to crop. The best shot was this one taken in-camera. I used Elinchrom heads from a 1.5m power pack soft box very high. Normally I would use a beauty dish, but not this time as I needed a little softer light. I shot this with a Nikon D3 and a Sigma 80-200mm lens at about f/11. I now use a Nikon D3X and Nikon VR lens.
POST-PRODUCTION
I am darkroom trained and for many years worked with traditional film and print, which I learned at university. However, my digital darkroom is all I use now and I run all of my images through Photoshop. Some images just need a simple brightness, contrast and sharpen, but I did use the clone and patch tools to clean things such as make-up artist marks and dust spots, especially from the eye make-up application. I also colour balanced it and output ready for print. When I sharpen an image, I always size it first, and then, just before saving it, I use the standard sharpen. You can use the unsharp mask tool but I tend not to do this all of the time. When adjusting brightness I use levels to bring out the best in the digital image. Digital does tend to be a little flat for printing. I only adjust to create more contrast, but this can tend to enhance the colours too much, so they have to be subdued by reducing the hue and saturation slightly. To clone images you must first have a copy on your layers so you can get back to it if needed. Cloning has to be subtle and with a pressure of 21% clone in the way the contours of the face run, keep it real; if you go too far you can add a little noise to make it realistic.
Stewart shows you how to add depth and feel to your images by changing tones.
INSPIRATION
This portrait wasn’t actually commissioned by a client. I took it in 2009 while on holiday in Burgundy, France. I’m very lucky to have some friends who own a beautiful 16th-century chateau in the region and, for the past few years, they have very kindly invited me to spend a couple of weeks there each summer. It’s absolutely my favourite time of the year, and I always dread the moment when I’ll have to board the Eurostar to return to dear old Blighty.
GETTING THE SHOT
It was the middle of August, and a really sunny day, so I was out photographing lizards, dragonflies and various other beasties in the surrounding fields. When I returned to the chateau, I decided to go for a swim in the pool, which is filled from a local supply of clean water. As I arrived, my friend Olivia Inge was just emerging from it, so I jokingly suggested we did an impromptu photo shoot. Happily, she agreed! Having been there quite often, I had previously noticed the vast, empty attic. As soon as I saw it, I thought it would make a fantastic location for a photo shoot, with its enormous, hand-crafted wooden beams – especially around the towers – and the occasional ray of sunlight that could be seen shining through tiny cracks in the tiles. Olivia agreed it would be ideal for our shoot, so we headed up the spiralling stone stairs and started shooting.
TECHNIQUE
Luckily for me, Olivia is a top model, who was the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen’s muse for two years, so I hardly needed to direct her at all – she knew exactly how the light would hit her, and I’ve never seen anyone pose so elegantly. This shot was taken right in front of a window, which provided a fairly even, but very bright light across her whole face, so I set my camera’s ISO rating to its lowest native setting of 100. In aperture priority mode, I opened up my 50mm f/1.8 lens and took two or three close-up portraits of her face. I knew straight away that I would want to add this one to my portfolio. I was fairly surprised that a model of Olivia’s calibre would let me photograph them without any make-up, just after a swim; but for me, the fact that the entire shoot was so natural adds a lot to it. I’ve never worked with such an amazing model, and I doubt that I ever will again.
POST-PRODUCTION
Unless I’m shooting sports or fast-moving subjects, I’ll always shoot in RAW, as it gives me the best possible image quality and leniency in post-processing. Once I had opened the file in Photoshop, I cloned out a few stray hairs, and converted the image to greyscale. I then converted it to duotone, using a dark-chocolate brown colour to add some warmth to the picture. I then converted it back to RGB and used the curves tool to ‘cross-process’ the image, which gave it an almost golden colouring. Once I was happy with the levels, I slightly desaturated the image and saved it as a high-quality Tiff file, so as to preserve it as the largest possible file.
GEAR USED
I did the entire shoot with a Canon EOS40D and a 50mm f/1.8 lens (which only costs about £75). Although this kit is fairly cheap and hardly cutting edge, I still find that it gives surprisingly good-quality images, and the lens offers amazing quality for the price. I used Photoshop CS3 for all the post-processing, although I have since upgraded to CS5.
David tells you how to create environmental portraits.
INSPIRATION
I am working on a project which involves shooting photographers around the world. The ones I’ve chosen are those who have inspired me and who have taken iconic images – the kind of shots everyone recognises without necessarily knowing the photographer’s identity. This image (top right) was to be about Gered Mankowitz in his world, in his space.
GETTING THE SHOT
Gered Mankowitz has photographed some of the greatest rock acts in the world, including The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Marianne Faithfull. Before arriving at Gered’s studio I had in my mind a shot of him in an archive room with shelves of negatives stacked up on each side. But when I got to his studio it wasn’t what I expected at all – a modern building built beside his house. We chatted over a coffee and I was trying to decide where to do the shot when I noticed he had a mannerism of holding his hand up to his face when talking. His iconic image of Jimi Hendrix (beside the door in the photograph) had been on the desk among different items that meant a lot to Gered. I wanted to incorporate these in the shot, so it meant a lot to him and to people who knew him. As well as the photo of Jimi, I included the statue standing behind him, which belonged to his brother, the book under the phone and a collection of images from a Rolling Stones tour.
TECHNIQUE
Once I had decided where I was shooting and what I was including and why, I set about lighting the picture with Dedolights, which are small tungsten lights I use a lot – I shoot watches, jewellery, food, interiors and people with them, as they are very controllable. I had one in the back room lighting the Jimi Hendrix image, one on the ground, one at the door and one to the left of the camera rim, lighting Gered himself. I left the lamp on to throw some light on the award and to spill on to the arm of the chair. I just wanted the focus on Gered’s face and to drift off into the background, so I shot using a 50mm lens, at 1/125sec at f/5. I like using a 50mm or a 45mm shift lens because of the perspective it gives. I feel it is the same as what the eye sees.
POST-PRODUCTION
I convert to black and white using a technique shown to me by photographer Greg Gorman in California, which gives what I feel is the closest quality to black-and-white printing. It’s created as an action, which I use on a Mac, but you should be able to use it on a PC too. When you use it, you still have the adjustments, if you need to change tonal range in the whites, blacks or mid-tones. After the black-and-white Greg Gorman conversion I dodge the image like we used to do in the darkroom to get this effect. To sharpen my images I select the channels palette, hold the Apple key and select all channels, then filter, sharpen, unsharp mask – choosing about 80-100%, depending on the subject matter and the contrast in your image. This way you sharpen all the colour channels and you get a much better effect.
Stay tuned for the next instalment of the Technique Guide: Landscape.
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