Advice on light set up for Pin-Up style shots?

[jen_edwards]

A couple of my friends asked me to shoot them in the 1940's Pin-Up

style. I guess the light should be somewhat even in that there

shouldn't be any unflattering shadows but I don't want it to be drab

at all - I want it to have punch and pop and make their skin & bodies

look smooth and glowy and for the colors to pop.

 

What kind of reflector does anyone think I should use? Are those

octagonal ones the best? I think my rentals place only has softboxes,

umbrellas, and grids to work with. I was thinking that foam core

reflecting boards all around would be helpful. How many lights would

be good and where do you suggest I place them? Would it be good to

have a flare or hairlight rimming one side or each side of the models

to make the light more interesting? What's a good way to achieve this

- I've had difficulty with it before.

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated - even if you only have a comment

on part of this big question!

[gaius1]

A lot of the "look" came from the equipment used. For instance, orthopanchromatic film wasn't very red sensitive; under tungsten light, it simply wouldn't record most skin blemishes. There was no antihalation layer either, so highlights would get a bit of a halo. The soft focus "glow" was achieved with uncorrected aberrations in the lens, something that's considered a flaw these days except in specialist lenses. I've played around a little with Efke KB50 film, tungsten gels on flash and a DC-Nikkor lens and gotten some nice results.

[kevin_hundsnurscher]

Use an umbrella or even hot lights. There's actually a couple of books that can be found at Borders or Barnes and Noble that show the lighting techniques of classic Hollywood potrait lighting. It's pretty close to the style of lighting used for Pinup work.

[steve_roark]

Are you talking about pin-ups as in Vargas illustrations or Hollywood style B&W photos?

[jen_edwards]

I want to shoot in the Vargas style in color, not the old B/W Hollywood Glamour style. I've never heard of that film before - I should look it up, but it would be best if I could use strobe lighting a shoot digital because the files are eventually going to have to be digital anyway and I would like to retouch in Photoshop to make them look a little less like photographs and more like airbrush painting.

 

Come to think of it, if anyone has suggestions on those digital manipulations or can direct me where to learn/find out about the technique, I'd appreciate it.

 

I think that a certain lens really would give a different, old-fashioned look. I always forget about that. Is there a filter I could put on my camera's lens to achieve similar results?

[jen_edwards]

I just looked up Efke KB 50 film and it's black and white and I need to to color, more in the Pin-Up painting style - I need to try to make the photos look like airbrush paintings. I did some pictures of my other friend in a George Hurrell style a while ago and that film sounds good for that, although photographers then used large format and it seems like this film is 35mm.

[steve_roark]

Kevin Ames has a book called Photopshop CS: The Art of Photographing Women. It might be of some help because the author applies liberal amounts of photoshop to turn models into plasticy Barbie dolls. Taken a little further, I think you use the techniques to simulate Vargas drawings.

 

I haven't tried the Vargas technique myself, but it looks to me a narrow strip bank as a key for the contouring, combined with enough fill light so that the contouring shadows are visible but not very dark. Just a guess.

 

Good luck and don't forget to post the results. I'd like to see the Hurrell style shots, myself.

 

Steve

[jen_edwards]

Great - I looked up the book and making a girl look like a Barbie is mentioned - I'm very curious to see that! Yes - it can be helpful to learn from a cheesy, overdone technique and modify it to get the look you're going for.

 

I will definitely post the results when I shoot them - I'm not taking the pictures until the last week of July. The George Hurrell type shots I did in black and white and I don't have scanned versions.

 

One quick questions: how does the shape of a strip light give a different quality of light from a regular light? What is the different effect? And is a strip light fluorescent or HMI? They don't make strobe strip lights, do they?

[steve_roark]

I was actually talking about the very narrow softboxes, such as Photflex's HalfDome2. Here's a link:

 

http://www.photoflex.com/photoflex/products/default.asp?product=HalfDome2

 

I saw a photo of a Playboy photographer using a tall one close to the camera. It created a soft main light, with more light fall-off on either side of the model than a traditional softbox. The fall-off helped define the model's curves with a soft darkening of body parts as they curved away from the key light. This probably helps slim the models as well. Vargas illustrations look similar, but more 'blown-out', so that's why I suggested the fill lights. I hope I explained this right. It sounds much simpler in my head.

 

Another technique I've seen that might lend itself to Vargas style shots is known as painting with light. The simple explanation is you lock the camera down, completely darken the room, and hold the shutter open while a flashlight (or similar source) is painted over the subject. Its a learned skill, but the results can look more like a painting than a photograph.

[floyd_long]

I would shoot with a hard light high and 45 degrees. Maybe a small amount of fill. Then process in photoshop this way:

 

1- Open the image you wish to "glamorize". Now duplicate it. Layer, Duplicate Layer

2- On the top layer go to Filter, Blur, Gaussian Blur. Try 25-50 pixels for 6 meg images.

3- Still on the top image go to Image, Adjust, Brightness and Contrast. Try +15% on both for starters.

4- On the Layers Menu select Overlay. In the pull down menu it is at the top left hand side. It will probably say Normal. Scroll down to Overlay.

5- In the Layers menu simply Flatten Image and save.

 

That's it. Simple and fun

 

R. Long

[jen_edwards]

I looked up that link for the strip light halfdome - what a good way to see explanations of

what lights and attachments do. I looked at all the different attachments and reflectors.

What you're saying about the light gently falling off makes sense. And I'm going to try

some of that stuff this person was also saying to do in PS with Overlay. I know that a lot of

the look will come in PS afterwards to make it look blown out and poppy. Thanks for you

help!