Catch lights in eyes? And general advice about this image

[Christal1664882414]

<p>Please critique this for me. I'm practicing on my husband in preparation for some head shots I'll be taking for a local arts organization. They want a solid white background. My specific concern here is with multiple catch lights in the eyes. I don't notice them too much until I enlarge it. I'd also like just general opinions about how I can improve this. This is way better than the head shots taken for this same group last year by another photographer, but it's still not at the level I'd like. I'd like to learn from this experience and get it as good as I can. So ANY help or suggestions on how to improve this would be greatly appreciated. Please be picky!! </p><div></div>

[tim_ludwig2]

<p>First, lets address the posing.; Shoulders straight on like this is pretty boring. Do this again with him facing about 30-45 degrees to whichever side you choose and then have him turn his face to the camera. In this case, his right cheek (camera left) is heavier, so turning his body to the right (again camera left) so that he presents the thinner side of his face.</p>

<p>Also, dipping the far shoulder as in leaning slightly on a table, will create an upward line to the face, further drawing the eye of the viewer to where you want it which is on that face and eyes. A slight tilt of the head in the direction of the low shoulder makes the subject look as though they feel more comfortable and of course, a slight smile adds a friendliness factor that is great.</p>

<p>Study the faces of each subject so that you can make this same decision. Presenting the thin side of the face to the camera subtracts serious pounds from the person in the image. Turn them to one side or the other and then adjust the placement of the lights accordingly.</p>

<p>Next instead of using this butterfly light position (which is outstanding for glamor, but not as good for a character study type of portrait) move your main light around to the left to cross the face and produce a Rembrandt style of lighting (leaving a triangular window of light below the near eye) and the rest of the near side of the face in shadow. This further slims the face. Keep the main a few inches higher than the level of the eyes.</p>

<p>The fill light belongs on the same side of the camera as the fill and is best used in line with the nose to avoid throwing any shadows on its own and to help combine the two catch lights into one. This pattern helps to create a three dimensional volume in the highlight to shadow wrap of the face. You can vary the power on the fill to your taste, going from deep shadows for drama, to somewhat (but not too) bright shadow areas for a less dramatic effect. The lighter highlight would probably be best with a white background like this so you don't create too much of a Chiaroscuro effect against the white.</p>

<p>Finally, I would add a large reflector flat in white a few feet to the shadow side of the subject. That would soften the shadows without creating any light pattern whatever. Move it in or out according to your taste.</p>

<p>With a white background, a hair light isn't really needed since you have excellent separation from the background so I wouldn't worry about bringing one to have to fuss with. Just creates a delay in your work flow in this case.</p>

<p>Look up the main facial lighting patterns and study and practice them if you haven't done this already. They are Rembrandt, Butterfly, Short side, Broad side and Split. All are viable choices for your arsenal, but I would suggest Rembrandt as probably being best for this kind of head shot.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

[Christal1664882414]

<p>Tim.....my gosh!!! Thanks for all of this! Now my responses.......</p>

<p>Ideally I would have loved to do Rembrandt or loop lighting. But this group showed me an example of what they wanted, and they wanted pretty flat, nothing dramatic, stark white background. The guys will have on black tuxes. So ordinarily this type of shot wouldn't be my first choice. </p>

<p>Having said that, some of your suggestions are really great. In fact, tonight I went out and bought pieces of foam core, taped them together with white gaffer tape, and now have a tall self-standing accordion folding reflector panel. I tried it and it works great. Thanks for the suggestion......works much better than the smaller reflector I was using.</p>

<p>I was primarily concerned about lighting.....highlights on the face, shadows on face and neck, brightness of the background, etc. I actually didn't pose him at all.....I should have! :-) Yes, I'd probably angle his body a bit more, then have his head turned to kind of make a 'c' curve down toward the lower shoulder. But your idea to have something to lean on is good.....I should work on that idea.....find something they can rest an arm on to help them assume a more relaxed pose.</p>

<p>Good info also about the heavy and thin side of the face.....I hadn't considered that. I'll look for it. The only problem with that is the type of job I'm doing. 75 guys head shots..... I won't really be able to move the lights around to accommodate each guy because there simply won't be time. But I'll keep that in mind for the future and do the best I can to consider it and work around it for this shoot. Thanks!</p>

<p>Do you happen to have any tips or suggestions for shooting someone with eyeglasses? I may make another post about that. Thanks again for your generous time and advice!</p>

[Bill C]

<p>Hi, I gotta say that Tim Ludwig is one of the very few photo.bet people that I nearly always agree with, the sole exception in this case being which side to turn towards the camera. I think that most people tend to favor one side, and this is the one I would try to have forward.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>But this group showed me an example of what they wanted, and they wanted pretty flat, nothing dramatic, stark white background.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I can't be sure what's right, having not seen the examples nor spoken with your customers. But in my experience, non-photographers are seldom correct in what they identify as the important part. I would guess that if you use Tim's suggestion, a Rembrandt-style light, but with a fairly strong fill (either close or large white reflectors), they may say that this is exactly what they're looking for, not realizing that it's different from the prior example of "what they wanted."</p>

<p>Since you did ask for a critique, and to be picky, here are my impressions from your sample. Keep in mind that they are not the only way to do things, and they are not necessarily "right," they are simply my impressions along with what I would change. (I might not be happy with my changes, either, in which case I'd try something else.)</p>

<p>The first places I tend to look in a headshot are at the eyes and expression. But with this shot, it seems that everything is trying to draw my eye away from these. Both sides of the face are lit up, especially the camera right side, where it looks like you are using a "kicker" light (it may be accidental spill from the background light, or even from the BG itself if it is overly large or bright). I think a weak kicker is great if you are using a main light off to that side, but since you are using a straight-on main light, you should stop lighting up the sides of the face, and let them darken. In truth, my impression is that the center of the face has become the darkest part. If you do a Google search on "butterfly lighting" and look at "images," notice how the center of the faces are brighter, while the sides of the face darken.</p>

<p>Next, that long shoulder (camera right) keeps stealing my attention. If you rotate the body slightly, as Tim suggested, that will pull the shoulder closer into the frame, giving a more "balanced" look. (I use the term "balanced" a lot with portraits, and it's something of a vague concept, but I use it to mean that things seem to have a proper size or color relationship within the frame.) In this case, one shoulder takes up much more of the frame than the other, and it also seems to take up too much space with regard to the head. So again, I suggest to either bring it in closer by rotating the body, or crop it off like you have the other (camera left) shoulder.</p>

<p>Two other things stick out to me, and it might just be from having done so many portraits (perhaps the general public doesn't notice this), but they are 1) the obvious (lit up) neck wrinkles, and 2) wrinkles in the shirt. If you raise the main light a little, the neck ought to go into shadow, except where your kicker is lighting it up. If you raise the kicker a bit, or move it more to the rear, that should help. The last item is the wrinkles in the shirt. Something that most people tend to do when seated is to slouch slightly. Asking them to "sit up tall," or straighten their back generally takes care of this. Clothes will "hang" better when they're up straight with chest out, but you may still need to adjust out a few wrinkles. From the look, I'd guess that his right arm (camera left) is slighly forward, if you move his elbow slightly back the wrinkles will probably straighten out. By the way, such adjustments make an impression on the subject; they feel that they are in good hands if you notice something as trivial as wrinkled clothing, and furthermore, you won't even shoot until you have fixed it.</p>

<p>Don't overlook that the most important thing will be to get good expressions; everything else will be secondary to this. All the things discussed here are just the mechanics of the thing, which, if you do it enough, will become nearly second nature to you.</p>

[tim_ludwig2]

<p>Christal,</p>

<p>I tried to answer your question regarding glasses last night, but I had a script lock up on my computer which stayed all night and forced me to reboot the system, losing the answer. I will rewrite it later today and send that off this afternoon.</p>

<p>As a very quick response to Bill C's kind words and one possible objection to what I had written, my justification for nearly always putting the narrow side of the face as the choice to be toward the camera is simple vanity. I have yet to find anyone who didn't appreciate being made to appear more slender than they expect, and the combination of thin side forward and Rembrandt lighting always gives that result. Nothing wrong with presenting the heavier side forward and even changing the lighting to broad side lighting to concentrate light on the forward side of the face, but the simple fact is that both of those techniques add pounds visually. So this is simply a matter of trying to anticipate what the subject him or herself will appreciate.</p>

[michaelmowery]

<p>Christal, I thought you did a pretty good job there. Good looking husband. I would add that you need a tad bit more illumination on the face and add a white 3x4 reflector placed about stomach level to bounce some light back up into the face and fill the shadows a bit more. I was surprised to see two catch lights as you told me you were only using one octabox over the lens. In any case if you are using the two place them both at equal distance from subject and place one on each side of the camera as close to you as possible to create a wall of light. A larger light source will soften the light and make normal people look better. It would be better to position them over the lens in front of you in a butterfly lighting position as it will also appear as one catch light.</p>

<p>Its funny as we all start off in photography lighting we all want to do all the lighting patterns on the face starting with Mr. Rembrandt. This is a beautiful lighting pattern and not so easily to attain correctly. I certainly would not advise this pattern for volume shooting of head shots. Today's contemporary look in corporate head shots has departed from the classic old school lighting with shadows and for good reason. Most photographers go crazy with the shadows thus the client is unhappy. I personally have evolved to more beauty lighting that is practically shadowless or very very minimal. I have not had one complaint and I personally love the look and I love how my retouching time has been cut down since there is minimal texture on the face. But my passion is creating drama and shadows and that is the conflict. In the end who ever is writing your check you do what they want. You can always offer a choice in lighting patterns which is great because most people don't really know what they want until they see it. But for this job you can not go wrong with butterfly lighting and it is quick as you can pose your subject on both sides and never have to fuss with the lighting. The faster you can move the people thru the happier the client will be.</p>

[michaelmowery]

<p>I took another look at your shot and I do see some backlighting going on camera right from your background light. It is a little hot on the neck but not bad on the side of the face. It may have worked for this shot but you need to have more control over your lighting. You may want to turn that light away from your subject more or flag it off. Kicker light is what we call it and I like them when used properly but it is not always appropriate and it is one more thing to watch out for and it can slow down your pace when shooting volume. Kicker lights also do not always look good on women. Again light coming from angles create texture and not everyones skin is smooth and perfect. We as photographers like character faces with dramatic lighting but generally the client wants to look like a magazine cover. lol.</p>

[michaelmowery]

<p>By the way when you light a white background don't go more than 1 stop over your main light on your subject. You should ideally check your RGB readings in photoshop and keep them around 245 to 250 so you are not clipping your white. You always want to preserve some detail. By controlling this you also prevent the background light from lighting up the back of your subject. Also this prevents reflected light bouncing off your subjects cloths going back into the white background and creating a tint.</p>

<p>There is too much advice going around telling people to over expose by 2 stops or more to get pure white. For my shots on my website read about 1/2 stop or 3/4 stop over my main. Now of course you can not use bone white you must use super white paper. In those instances where your paper color is a shade or so darker than pure white then and only then do you push your exposure further to compensate but it is best to use the right color to begin with.</p>

[michaelmowery]

<p>I did not touch on posing as Tim did a good job on that already. Just don't turn them too far to one side because they have to then turn there face back at the camera and that can cause the neck to look like a wet towel being twisted. More retouching! Once the twisting starts you know when to stop or bring them back toward you a bit. I do at a few different angles a choose what looks best. You can't always eliminate the twists but you can minimize it.</p>

[sjmurray]

<p>Catch lights can easily be photo-shopped out or altered. </p>

[Christal1664882414]

<p>Just letting you know I haven't deserted the thread. I'll read all of this info tomorrow.....I'm sure there will be a lot for me to digest here. :-) Thank you all!</p>

[Christal1664882414]

<p>Bill, thanks for being picky! :-) I would include an example of the head shots they sent to me, but I am reluctant to do that because I don't know the people and don't have their permission to post their images.</p>

<p>But yes, non-photographers may not be aware of the options. So what I'll do is use my husband as the subject (he'll be thrilled ;-) and prepare a few different lighting scenarios to show them. Perhaps they'll like something else. I don't mind the white background particularly, except for the fact that the head shots will appear in a program, which is printed on white paper. Not having a border to delineate the edge of the image looks funny.....white on white. So perhaps I can get them to go for a grayer background.</p>

<p>Since I posted this image, I've made a larger reflector panel out of foam core, and I've also finally fixed the problem I was having with my speed light, which I'm using for fill. I've also bought another soft box.....a large one, but rectangle. I couldn't get the octobox in the right position in the space I have with lower ceilings. If I put it straight out from the subject, it hangs down to low and encroaches on my ability to shoot the subject. So I think I'm getting a better result now with more light on the face. I'm going to experiment more this afternoon and will pay attention to the light on the sides of the face and determine where that is coming from. I may want to leave the 2 rear strip lights pointed at the background, but move the subject further from the background. </p>

<p>I hear you about the shoulder and balance, and I agree with you.</p>

<p>I was strictly concerned about lighting, so I didn't 'fix' anything on my husband's attire. He was patient enough to help me.....I didn't want to press my luck. :-) I'm usually very attentive to things like wrinkles, misplaced hairs, make-up smudges, etc. One good thing is that the men will be wearing tuxedoes, which are pretty sturdy and starched. That shouldn't be too much of a problem if I'm just attentive to it, which I am.</p>

<p>I greatly appreciate the time it took for you to send me your opinions. Thanks!</p>

[Christal1664882414]

<p>Tim.....don't worry about re-typing the info about the eyeglasses. Unless you have some 'trade secrets'. :-) I found a bunch of threads on the subject, and I experimented yesterday with my husband and was able to achieve a nice result with no glare.</p>

<p>As for shooting the 'best' side of the face, all I can say is I'll have lots of practice. :-) Although as it turns out there will only be about 50 at the retreat. The other 25 will have to be shot at another time. But I'll have 50 times to experiment, and hopefully I'll get good at assessing pretty instantly the best side for each gentlemen.</p>

<p>Thanks for your time in writing about the eyeglasses.....sorry you lost it! </p>

 

[Christal1664882414]

<p>Michael, I've tried so many set-ups while experimenting that frankly I can't remember exactly what set-up I was using here. But since this image, I've made good strides, both because of the advice here as well as my own experimentation. I have a large reflector screen that I think really helps. I've tried pointing the speed light toward the reflector board, then use the rebounded light as the fill, and I've also tried a diffuser umbrella over the speed light pointed at the subject. For awhile I couldn't control the speed light settings, but I've got that problem worked out now so I can set the speed light quite low if I need to.</p>

<p>See my comment to Bill above about placement of my octobox and replacing with a large rectangles soft box instead. As for type of light, I much prefer Rembrandt or loop lighting, or for men even a snoot. But I find that most people like the 'Sears portrait' look and don't like anything too 'out there'. So I agree that probably 'plainer is better' in this instance. But I will give them a couple of choices at least, so maybe I can meet them half way.</p>

<p>As for your comment <br>

<em>'I do see some backlighting going on camera right from your background light'</em><br>

<em><br /></em>I don't know what I've been thinking. I generally use the histogram religiously, but for some reason throughout this entire experimentation on portraiture with flash, I haven't used it once. I guess I was thinking that using artificial light would negate the need for a histogram.....don't know where my head was on that one! :-) I can't tell that it's blown out on my computer screen, but from now on I'll check the histogram, which should help. I'll be able to tell if I load them into the computer of course.</p>

<p><em>'By the way when you light a white background don't go more than 1 stop over your main light on your subject.'</em><br>

This is the kind of thing I didn't know and is really helpful to me. That should help. Also, I think I have the subject too close to the background and the strip lights may be bleeding. Today is my last day of experimentation before the 'show'. :-) So bottom line, I need to heed all of this great advice, and then just enjoy the day and try to make people comfortable and look their best.....and let my intuition serve me. I know this stuff.....I just need practice.....LOTS!!! </p>

[Christal1664882414]

<p>Steve.....yeah, thank goodness for Photoshop, eh? Thanks!</p>

[Christal1664882414]

<p>Tim, Bill, Michael and Steve,<br>

I want to thank you all for this guidance. I really want to get good at this, so I think I'll try this again.....that is, submitting an image for critique here rather than in the critique forum. I'll only do it when I need specific advice on something. But I feel like I've had a mini-course in lighting and portraiture from your generous comments. And I'm also talking about the other questions I've posted in the forums on lighting, gels and more. I've learned a lot! Thank you all!</p>

[tim_ludwig2]

<p>No problem about losing the one post, Christal. After a big storm, I've had some connectivity problems at home and that few minutes of work just got toasted by a frozen computer. Oh, well.</p>

<p>Glad you found the other posts and got that help there.</p>

<p>As to the face side choices, have a little fun with your husband. This doesn't really involve much about lighting, just be sure that both sides of the face are well illuminated. Have him absolutely straight on to the camera as in his nose pointed directly at the center of the lens.</p>

<p>Take the shot and save it as one of the three images you are going to make. Next, go into whatever part of photoshop does this (I've only done it in a darkroom decades ago), and not only save a second copy of the same image, but then flip the image and save that. Now, on those last two images, draw a line directly down the center of the image absolutely splitting his face in two down the center of the nose. The next step is the fun one. Separate the halves of those last two images and then recombine them with it's opposite. That's thin to thin, and fat to fat. You will end up with the two heavy halves of the face together and the two skinny halves together. It's hilarious, but also a great way to force you to recognize how completely asymmetrical a human face is and to nudge you into recognizing that at a glance when working with a subject. </p>

<p>I have read that Elizabeth Taylor in her best years, had the only truly symmetrical face ever photographed. The rest of us have to suffer with the balance problem of skinny and fat cheeks on the same moniker. </p>

<p>Have fun.</p>