Influenced by Irving Penn, I was going for checkerboard lighting, set with a confident, serene gaze. Shot with Canon 5D Mark IV, 70-200 (85mm) f2.8 lens, ISO 100. Two Godox AD400 strobes with gridded reflectors and a flag for the black background. Retouched with Capture One and PS.
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I love the split background look, though a smidge is bleeding over behind the model's head. I don't think most people would notice though. For me what plops this at a 3 is how her right side (camera left) starts to fall into shadow. The way it happens doesn't look necessarily intentional? Again not something most people would probably notice. Overall very nicely done though!
Thanks Bryan. My first attempt at checkerboard. It was tricky to flag the light for the perfect separation I was after. Too late now for contest (!) but would take your suggestion to brighten camera left a bit more in post
It's a wonderful capture of a stunning model that I wanted to rate very high. If I may explain where this falls a bit short IMO. Generally, attention is drawn to the brightest part of an image which should be the face. However, the wrist and back of hand are grabbing the attention. This can fixed in post. In addition, details are being lost in the shadows, Specifically in the hair and bottom. A kicker or fill light could solve these or open the shadows more when processing. A bit too much of the whites of the eyes (better if seen on both sides by slightly gazing more right, tilting head, or adjusting camera angle) The tone, emotion, and retouching is spot on. A great image, almost pure excellence.
Thanks Glenn. I agree, hand could be darkened down a bit and ideally the model (or me) should have angled slightly. Darkening at the bottom was intentional as didn’t want too much attention there. Appreciate the comments! - Ken
I like the image overall lighting is great and pose is great but I feel the skin smoothing is a bit too much. It looks too filtered and too smooth. I think it would be stronger if the smoothing was dialed back 50%
Thanks Angela. I'd done a first retouch with an opposite result and I went a bit more in this direction
I love this photo... this is the type of photograph which really separates amateur from professional portrait work. The lighting is so carefully crafted, first time or not with this particular lighting, it's impressive. I don't agree with the comment that her skin is too smooth. I suspect that she, in fact, does have smooth flawless skin. Some people are blessed with that, and deserve to be presented that way. Great work.
Many thanks Edward!