Touching The Absolute - band portrait promos

Some friends of mine needing some promo portraits for their band.....check them out if you wish on myspace. They are actually playing with Days of The New this weekend, so proud of their accomplishments
www.myspace.com/touchi​ngtheabsolute the portraits on their myspace page were done by me as well last year, significant improvement since last year I must say!

We went through 6 different edit sets before deciding on these.....

1

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I like how how you light them up. The post processing is really good too with good contrast and sharpness, but you chopped their head off in #3 and #4, and the arms in #2.

I am not sure how to put my finger on this, but there is something missing in these shots which makes them appear a little generic to me. I think it's a combination of the backdrop which creates some form of emptiness and the tight composition.

I think it is the expressions and even more so the eyes.
The dead look is popular with this generation. I too like your post processing.

These are excellent. The first one really rocks!

Anh Bi wrote in post #8047898
I like how how you light them up. The post processing is really good too with good contrast and sharpness, but you chopped their head off in #3 and #4, and the arms in #2.

I am not sure how to put my finger on this, but there is something missing in these shots which makes them appear a little generic to me. I think it's a combination of the backdrop which creates some form of emptiness and the tight composition.

Maybe flagging the BG light to split the BG dark and light?

These are awesome IMO.

Great work.

These are great shots. I like the expression they have and your pp is excellent.
I like first image but I would place lights differently. Looks like main light is placed camera left and that leaves the guy on right pretty dark. I would use gridded lights on both sides so that light on left would lit only first 3 guys (like it is now), and same on right side. I like how you lit first 3 guys on camera left leaving shadows on their left side. That would look good also for guy on right.
Easy thing explained in complicated way... hope you understant

very nice lighting and postp, skin and eyes specialy. in group shot expressions is ok for teenagers "sowhat?" and without their instruments they feel a little armless, i guess. separate shots are better for all guys but in 4 he has almost the same "unexpression"
i thought he is a frontman - tell him to be more open and bold like its on stage in front of hundreds of screaming girls i'm sure he has great smile

poloman wrote in post #8049657
I think it is the expressions and even more so the eyes.
The dead look is popular with this generation. I too like your post processing.

Yeah I think you are correct about that. Out of all of the images that I snapped that day alot of them were of them smiling and having a good time but they didn't want any of those for the band promos. They did however want those for themselves personally to send to their girlfriends and moms Thanks, Poloman!

Shuttergal wrote in post #8052800
These are excellent. The first one really rocks!

Thanks Shuttergal, greatly appreciated!

andrewdorian wrote in post #8053018
Maybe flagging the BG light to split the BG dark and light?

I'm not understanding, I'm a little slow and sometimes I even drool on myself lol can you explain this?

Grimlock wrote in post #8053034
These are awesome IMO.

Great work.

Woop Woop Grimlock, thanks!

Semmonka wrote in post #8053181
These are great shots. I like the expression they have and your pp is excellent.
I like first image but I would place lights differently. Looks like main light is placed camera left and that leaves the guy on right pretty dark. I would use gridded lights on both sides so that light on left would lit only first 3 guys (like it is now), and same on right side. I like how you lit first 3 guys on camera left leaving shadows on their left side. That would look good also for guy on right.
Easy thing explained in complicated way... hope you understant

COMPLETELY agreed and understood! hahahaha However I only have a certain amount of lighting equipment to work with for now....I'm still working on building up more Thanks for the comments, Semmonka!

roman_t wrote in post #8053852
very nice lighting and postp, skin and eyes specialy. in group shot expressions is ok for teenagers "sowhat?" and without their instruments they feel a little armless, i guess. separate shots are better for all guys but in 4 he has almost the same "unexpression"
i thought he is a frontman - tell him to be more open and bold like its on stage in front of hundreds of screaming girls i'm sure he has great smile

hahahahaha None of these guys are close to being teenagers! In fact the one in the red shirt is almost 40! But their band's image does portray that somewhat rebellious tone which reflects teenager. As far as the frontman hahaha well that's just Nick. It's hard trying to get anything out of him when he is in front of the camera, he turns completely shell shocked! Thanks Roman, your comments are ALWAYS welcome here!!

The PP is very good on these.

Looks cool! Were they shot individually then blended into one image?

Rhinotherunt wrote in post #8054760
Looks cool! Were they shot individually then blended into one image?

No does it look like it?

Kittygraphix wrote in post #8054954
No does it look like it?

Yes, because the lighting on the individuals seems different in the group. Also, the bg seems to show different lighting. I still like it.

Lighting setup was main light camera left, AB1600 with large softbox, camera right was an AB800 using a reflector umbrella (only modifier available). I think you are seeing what resulted in poor lighting from camera right with the umbrella not being able to push past the first guy on the right and also the main light overpowering it. Also AB400 directly behind middle guy on BG.

Ah, I see. Thanks Kat.