First attempt at self portrait with lighting

Recently, I got a pair of Calumet Genesis 200s with softboxes. I thought I'd go for a bit of a high-key look for a self portrait. I used Flash Zebra optical triggers to trigger two 430EXIIs to light up the wall. One Genesis was about 9 feet up and 10 feet straight back, and the second Genesis was about 5-6 ft. up and about 5 ft back and towards photo right. (limited space in the room)

I did some PP as well. There's a B&W conversion that is around 40% opacity on top of the original color layer.

This is my first time out with my lights. I'd love to hear what I did right and what I did wrong. Thanks for looking!

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Not a bad first attempt. I know you were shooting for a highkey look but there just a bit too much exposure here. Your face is so blown it blends into the background a bit too much and your shirt is way over exposed and muddy. I think you are on the right track here though. Perhaps a lighter colored shirt would help so you could exposure for the skin tones rather than trying to balance with the dark shirt. Again, I think you are on the right track here. Does anyone else have any advice?

I actually pushed the exposure quite a bit in ACR. I suppose I went a bit too far! I may have to play with the original again when my cold goes away. After looking at the original, I probably could have upped the power on my key lights. Here's what the original unedited shot looks like:

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Your arm gets cutted on the right side of the photo and a part of the guitar is not in the picture.
But it's not that easy done with a self portrait. Keep trying!

JelleVerherstraeten wrote in post #10261596
Your arm gets cutted on the right side of the photo and a part of the guitar is not in the picture.
But it's not that easy done with a self portrait. Keep trying!

That's why I cropped it in the first one I posted. It's a bear trying these selfies without an articulating display like my Canon SX10IS has.

I'd echo what others have said. It's definitely a good idea, but it could be improved. I like the edit and the high-key look, but there's a few things I'd change. First off, the right hand side of our face blends completely in with the white background - there's no line showing where your cheek stops. Same goes for some of the edges of your shirt. Also, I'd like to see the whole of the bass (nice bass, by the way!). Don't be scared to stand back a bit and crop in PP.

Like said above, a lighter shirt will help no end with making this a lot easier to expose evenly. Nice idea though.

Crispy! wrote in post #10262323
I'd echo what others have said. It's definitely a good idea, but it could be improved. I like the edit and the high-key look, but there's a few things I'd change. First off, the right hand side of our face blends completely in with the white background - there's no line showing where your cheek stops. Same goes for some of the edges of your shirt. Also, I'd like to see the whole of the bass (nice bass, by the way!). Don't be scared to stand back a bit and crop in PP.

Like said above, a lighter shirt will help no end with making this a lot easier to expose evenly. Nice idea though.

Crispy - thanks for the tips about getting the whole bass in. I'll give that a whirl in a larger room (I was shooting with my 24-70 and the camera was as far back as it would go in that room).

The shirt was an experiment in graphic lines - sounds like it failed! And I do LOVE that bass. You don't see too many of them around.