My first studio "gig"

A coworker asked if I would photograph some formal shots of her daughter and I agreed. I want to give her some nice images, but I also wanted the practice. I warned them ahead of time of my inexperience. I am not happy with my background because of the creases in the material. Now that the shoot is finished, I would like to fix the background in post but I don't know how to. Also would appreciate any feedback in general. If I need to, I will post in the post processing forum, but I figured I would start here.

There are lots of ways to blur a background with Photoshop.

But since I'm not an expert on that, let's talk about the lighting. The shadows look a bit harsh. Tell us about your lighting setup, including size of modifiers and distance from model, and we'll go from there.

My lights are the Genesis 200's. They all have the reflector that they came with. The key light is behind a diffusion panel and they have barn doors attached. The panel was about 4 feet from the model. The light is very close to the panel. The fill light is behind me and slightly to the right. There is an umbrella on it. I am guessing it was about 5-6 feet from the model. The background light is off to the right and is only using the reflector.

Stefan

Stefan A wrote in post #7808828
The light is very close to the panel.

I think it would be worth a try to move the light further away from the diffusion panel to create a larger apparent light source.

Other than the lighting, I really like the first shot. She looks very proud of her medals.

That was one of her favorite shots - even though I didn't like the way the arms are hidden. Thanks - I will try to move the light further away next time.

Stefan

Maybe a better question for this forum would be what can I do to get my background to look better? I have read here that many of you just ball up your muslins until the creases are small and random. I am worried that will make my backgrounds look like a lot of random small creases.

Stefan

Odd crop in number 1. The crop should be higher up, not at her waist. Number 2 crop should be a bit lower. Lighting is decent. Overall i think you're off to a great start. As for the background, you could try increasing the aperture to blur the BG more and then decrease light output or iso, or move her forward more if possible.

Stefan A wrote in post #7809131
Maybe a better question for this forum would be what can I do to get my background to look better? I have read here that many of you just ball up your muslins until the creases are small and random. I am worried that will make my backgrounds look like a lot of random small creases.

Stefan

Yes. Wad it up for storage. Many small random creases are far more pleasing than straight fold lines. If you want a completely smooth background, use seamless paper made for the purpose.

Stefan A wrote in post #7808828
The key light is behind a diffusion panel and they have barn doors attached. The panel was about 4 feet from the model. The light is very close to the panel.

Stefan

If you move the light close to the diffusion panel, it makes the light source small and ends up looking hard – almost like a bare bulb. The point of the diffusion material isn't to send light rays all over, although it does that, but to make the apparent light source appear larger. The surface of the material becomes the light source. If the light spot on it is small, it will be a small light with harsh shadows. If the light spot on it is big, it becomes a large light source with soft shadows. That's when you can actually take advantage of those randomly scattered light rays. Any body part, say a chin, gets some rays from the top of the area where the light hits the panel and some rays from the bottom of where the light the panel, and so on. The wider the variation in angles of the light rays striking the subject, the softer the light. That is what makes the light soft and wrap-around. So the easiest way to get soft light is to move the panel close to the subject and the light far enough from the panel to light the whole thing or at least a substantial amount of it. Sorry for being so wordy.

This solution won't always work, but it's a story worth telling.

I bought two new 10x20 backdrops for this shoot. They arrived neatly folded and I knew the creases would be horendous. But we were able to set up the day before, so we unfolded them, threw them in the washer and gave them a soak and a spin.

We bagged them up wet and took them to location. We hung them up and stretched them between the stands with spring clamps. Next morning they were dry and looked decent.

Curtis N wrote in post #7810039

Is this ONE of your 10x20 background or two placed together?

EDIT: I meant to make a reference to your first image...

SYS wrote in post #7810063
Is this ONE of your 10x20 background or two placed together?

One hanging, one on the floor. You can see the hem of the hanging one behind the feet of the model. We hung them both up to dry the night before, then taped one on the floor for the shoot.

With such close quarters that I have, I cannot take advantage of a telephoto lens to help with blurring the background. If I had your kind of room, I bet that would help. But as it is, my shortest focal length was 55mm and that was about as close as I would want to get. But yeah, I should try lower f stop and getting the light further from the panel.

Thanks Charlie for the cropping advise. Unfortunately #1 is not a crop, that's how I took the shot. But for #2 I thought it was better to cut off between joints, not on the joint. If I cropped lower, that would be right at the knees.

Stefan

Curtis N wrote in post #7810097
One hanging, one on the floor. You can see the hem of the hanging one behind the feet of the model. We hung them both up to dry the night before, then taped one on the floor for the shoot.

Thanks, Curtis. The photos look great, by the way.

For a signle person shot you can try low power so you can shoot at f2.8. With non AB lights, there shouldn't be power or WB issues. That will help blur the bg.