Simple 2 Light Portrait Set-up - 700KB Warning!

I'm posting these here 'cause I want to put a link in the lighting "Sticky" & I know that you guys will have some good suggestions. So feel free!

This turned out to be "simpler" than I'd intended!
I like to travel light & I used the #2 since the title could have been either "Two light portrait" or "Too light on the light -stands portrait" as in I forgot my frackin' umbrella & my other cousins daughter Kelly expected to have some pictures taken, so what do you do? In my case, I just had to find a way to take them.

Solving the lack of an umbrella was easy as I had an extra piece of 30X40" art board that I'd intended to use as a flag. Problem was that I'd intended to mount both the strobes and the quartz "modeling light" on the same stand, so now I was one stand short. Which is why the tripod was "standing-in" for the missing light stand. (Don't do this in front of a client!)

Not everyone has a bag full of light stands, so I had planned to put the background strobe on another chair.
The 2 strobes are some very old & very cheap Spiralites that I bought to carry along with my Vivitars when I flew out of town. I think I paid about $30 each. Maybe less. I've seen them go on eBay for $6.

1S. The "set" without the main bounce cardboard in the way of the light stands. (One strobe has a 1ND gell still on it from another shoot.)
The white background is a roll of plastic tablecloth. A "proper" exposure for it was f/8 so it was over exposed about 1-1/2 stops. (Ignore the black cloth on the background. These were shot after we finished & I saw no point in showing the set with & without it.)
2S. With the main bounce cardboard in place.

3S. From the back showing the 750wt Quartz "modeling" light & the two strobes.
4S. The black is a Velour backdrop fabric that soaks up the light. I added a red gell & this shot was at f/9 so I expected it to be underexposed about 1 stop more than what you see here.

5S. I meter off white paper. This was at f/10. Eye level white RGB readings in RSEP were 253, 251, 254 which was indicated in the cams LCD histogram by "blinkies" everywhere.
6S. This was at f/13. Eye level white RGB readings from the paper in RSEP were 239, 245, 241 - "blinkies" were only on the top-right corner of the paper. Close enough for government work!

Only USM 100, 0.6, 0 post processing was done on the resized shots of Kelly in the first examples. All shots were "On the paper meter" at 1/200 sec, f/13, ISO 100, & were taken in a 45 minute period. Total # of shots was about 70.

Thanks for looking, & remember, comments are expected! I'd like to keep this thread alive awhile so more people can see it.
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Only USM 100, 0.6, 0, post processing was done on the resized shots of Kelly in the first examples. No adjustment was made for exposure in RSEP RAW conversion. All shots were "On the paper meter" at 1/200 sec, f/13, ISO 100, & were taken in a 45 minute period. Total # of shots was about 70.

1W & 2W were also shot as in example 1S.
1B & 2B were with the left card gray side toward Kelly.
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The following shots have been processed! Some usual stuff, & some not.

1 & 2
Shot as shown above.
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3 & 4
I think I turned the bounce white art board at the left so that the grey side was toward Kelly.
The B&W with grain looks much better in a large print.
Grain for Digital Black and White

Adding A More Realistic Film Grain Effect
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5.
I removed the bounce board at the left entirely. - - - - - - - - - - - Edit: Two more shots farther down.
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Nice shots and nice editing!

nice shots, and thanks for the explanation. 2b is my fav, followed by the first one with the white background.

Thanks, guys. I hope that these reduce the "intimidation factor" that some people have for lighting!

This is a wonderful tutorial. I'll have to save it and look at it later and study it. I don't have any lights but maybe someday...

Thx Frank. Very educational.

Pls help someone lacking caffiene -umm, the red gel onto the black velour... which shot of the setup shows that bkgd light & stand?

Lots to read there (I HATE TYPING!) so you probably missed this, "Not everyone has a bag full of light stands, so I had planned to put the background strobe on another chair." Which I did.
See it in #s 1S & 2S? It's the chair behind the one Kelly sat on.

No excuse! As I said, I've seen these go for $6 on eBay. I try to use simple stuff for these Stickys so that anyone can try it out.

she's lovely
her eyes, you got them so beautiful Frank

I love 1W and 2B especially
also the processed pictures

2B is like one of those old fashioned portraits which always have a great charm about them. I love it
the grainy shot is different again
she looks much older in these last two . very nice though
you went to a lot of trouble in the set up
I'm sure many here will appreciate it

As a former farmer, I'm accustomed to "making do with what I got." So I can appreciate the ingenuity involved here.

I have tried make-shift lighting setups for portraits a few times, with a few old flash units and a windshield sun reflector. I reached the following conclusions:
1) I suck at portraits.
2) You have to get the reflector pretty close to the model. So even slight changes in pose which change the distance/angle to the reflector will profoundly affect the light ratios.

But as long as you have a patient subject(victim), such experimentation is always a learning experience at the very least.

Thanks for putting this together, Frank!

Frank: Thanks for the tutorial. The photos came out great!

Curtis: I am sure your portraits are not that bad. Follow Frank's tutorial and let's see some results.

Thanks everyone, and Marie, I'll tell her that a "charming Irish lassie" said that!

1) Personally, I'd rather shoot things that don't move,myself.
2) I knew that you'd bring something to this that I'd forgotten to mention! Consider this a starting point. A small change it the way she holds her head made a big difference in the effect. The reflector size in this set-up would not be ideal for an evenly lit full length shot, but will give a nice fall-off of the light for the head & shoulders shots seen here. There is room to play with though as I was at f/13 so it would be possible to use a larger reflector & move it farther away than the 3' light to subject distance used here. Adding another $6 strobe to the two main lights, & maybe one for a hair light would give you more flexibility, too.

The major point of these threads is that anyone can get a decent result with minimal equipment if they just start somewhere (anywhere) & then refine the results.
Low cost off camera flash tutorial for beginners

A few months ago I posted a shot of another cousins daughter & I think I may have taken a shot of that set, too. I'll have to see if I can find it.
EDIT:
The same general lighting set-up, with some interesting comments. It's in Glamour, so sorry if you can't see it yet:
Emerging glamour?
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