(18+)How to light like this

[Karl Johnston]

http://www.modelmayhem.com/pic.php?pid=6042697&group_id=&ua=
http://www.modelmayhem.com/pic.php?pid=6042055&group_id=&ua=

How do you get that look, and that lighting? Most times now I can look at an image and tell a bit of how it's done, including lighting set up. But with this one I can't figure it out..how do you get that porcealin doll look ? Is it the result of an extremely diffused light? But everything looks very sharp, too, and natural.

I understand there's probably skin smoothing, but the way it's lit confuses me.
I sent an e-mail to the guy that did it, though I don't know if he'd have the time to get back at a newbie like me considering how much work he must do.
Thoughts?

[tfiorda]

The lighting can be figured out by looking at the shadows. It looks mostly like one light coming from camera left on the first one and a bit behind and camera right on the 2nd. Again either to the side or a bit behind the model.

The porcealin skin look is a post process. Way overdoing normal skin smoothing. Some like that and for these images it works. Normally I don't like it as it doesn't look natural.

These are my opinions anyway. Hope that helps.

Tony...

[Karl Johnston]

I ended up getting the lighting set up from the photog, after all,

I thought the porcealin skin look was a bit weird considering the set up, but whatever works eh? Now I gotta find the tutorial for processing skin like that :lol:

The setup was very simple: Two softboxes close together off to the model's left, one large one for full length, the other smaller, higher up, and directed at her head. There is no bounce except for what the white backdrop produced, and no flagging. There was also an assistant off to the side and slightly behind the model, holding up a fan.

For reference, there's the excerpt e-mail I got back...not quite "simple" for me :lol: but it makes sense.

[tfiorda]

Karl, that lighting in not difficult at all. I just couldn't tell if there was more than one light to the side.

Just in case, flagging, is blocking light with some sort of object to prevent it from falling on a certain location or to dimisish the amount of light hitting your subject.

Good luck with your learning objective!

Tony...

[doidinho]

From the looks of it the white backdrop produced quite a bit of fill. Something to keep in mind if you experiment w/ his setup.

[Psychobiker]

One very large diffused light to the right and a fill to left?

[hawk911]

really... share his notes with us :)