Meet Debra (A Lighting Test)

Set up my temporary studio over the weekend and took a few test shots. I am working toward getting ready to work with real live people I want to learn the right way to shoot portraits as well as G&N.

Please excuse the BG I had a roll of white seamless all ready to go but I never wound up unrolling it. Instead I got caught up in taking images and never really got around to the BG. Also please excuse the fact that Debra looks a bit orange, she is that way in real life. Color & WB both adjusted with ColorChecker.

I am really interested in critique on my lighting. What did I do right? What did I do wrong? What should I do differently next time?

Too much hair light in this one?

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her skin seems too smooth - too much post processing in my opinion.

she seems well exposed and personally i rarely use hair or rim lights - i'd rather use the second light as a fill to the face

No processing at all. Just color & WB correction and a bit of crop. Skin like that out of the box. I was a little dissapointed in the quality of the mannequin, it is not as lifelike as I would have liked. At the same time there is still something strange about putting the head back on a shelf and closing the cabinet door.

I like the pose in #3 and the brighter hair light in #4. BTW, that's a really ugly tattoo on her neck.

Yeah, that has to be a bit disconcerting.

There's got to be something you can use other than the head. It just doesn't reflect light correctly. Do you have a neighbor or friend you can use? I would use an egg before that mannequin head.

Though ive never tried it, a banana is supposed to reflect like skin.

I like the lighting in 4, but very difficult to see how this will translate when you're shooting a person. I'd try and get a test subject in a shoot (friend or neighbour, as suggested by Gregg.Siam)

I think Debra will prove to be quite useful. Her eyes are reflective enough to show catchlights, her lips are glossy as well. The shape of her face isn't very realistic but it will suffice for modeling and shadow patterns. Her hair also does what it needs to do in practicing with a hair light.

What Debra won't do is show you how a 60+ year old woman will look. They can get pretty self-conscious about wrinkles and sagging neck skin, and sometimes you need to take a different approach.

I agree. Too much skin processing. Her skin is looking like plastic! Otherwise, nice.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. There actually was not any skin processing, skin looked that way right out of the box.

Bill - I'm pretty sure the "plastic skin" comments are in jest.

:o:o:o. Curtis, thanks for pointing out the blindingly obvious which I somehow missed.:o:o

Curtis N wrote in post #15724479
I think Debra will prove to be quite useful. Her eyes are reflective enough to show catchlights, her lips are glossy as well. The shape of her face isn't very realistic but it will suffice for modeling and shadow patterns. Her hair also does what it needs to do in practicing with a hair light.

What Debra won't do is show you how a 60+ year old woman will look. They can get pretty self-conscious about wrinkles and sagging neck skin, and sometimes you need to take a different approach.

She has painted on catchlights =/, unless what you're referring to are those blurry highlights on her eyes. However, I do agree that the mannequin will suffice for learning how to shape light. Just don't show the rest of the world your test shots, they may think that you're some psychopath