Hi everyone! I'm really trying to improve my headshot skills so I thought I could ask you for some comments on these pictures! For info, I shoot with 2 lights, clamshell lighting set up. One of the questions I have: Wouldn't it be better to use just one key light and use the second one to light the background? Any comment appreciated, thanks in advance guys!
Alexis
Can your share your comments with me?
Technically these look great to me. Maybe work on getting more interesting expressions from the subjects. This is hard for me as well! The 2nd one is close. Do you know about the squench thing? Google it if not. Some of the women have wild hair. Having a MUA or a friend to look after that would be good. Anyway, the lighting is great.
Thanks for your comments and for your time Eric! II just find it hard to get distance from my work. I take good notes of what you said! I know about the squench yeah, Peter Hurley is a great source of inspiration for me and I'm trying to learn as much as possible from his work. I'll go back to work then, any other comments are more than welcome!
Like Eric said the lighting is well done. But obviously your biggest problem is the post-processing. I can quit easily tell that you have added the white background in photoshop and you've had problem with masking the hair especially in the 1st and 3rd. Also there is some sort of wierd halo in the eyes of the 1st subject.
I would suggest that you use the second light to light the background or even as a background itself depending on how large modifiers you have. And to replace the second light that's was filling from beneath the subject I would go with a white/silver reflector.
You can also try to use the white reflector as a background and see if the lights are able to make it completely white. Only downside to this setup is that you might have to bring the reflector so close to subject that it's spills the light back to the subjects from behind.
But anyways the cheapest option here is to get the reflector and play with to see which setup gives you the best results.
Hope you got something from this!
Thank you Villa! This is so helpful! I was curious to know if the white background was obvious or not, I got my answer and clearly needs to find another way to get it. Plus this will be a huge time saver for the editing process. I guess a less cheap solution would be to get hold of a thirdt light for the background? I'll follow your advice anyway, and see how it goes. Cheers.
Alex
Agree with all that has been said. However, my definition of a headshot (as opposed to a portrait) is that it sends a "message. That's what grabs the viewers attention. I can't assign a message to photo number one or number 3. They're just looking at the camera.
Photo two and four have a little more going on. Remember that the basic "message" in a headshot is...."I'm fun to work with and I'm good at what I do". They have to evoke "confidence". They also should look like they would be fun to work with. Number three looks like she could bite my head off.
haha, I definitely agree with you, you're right. thanks eric, that was a pretty enlightning answer, although i find it quite obvious now that you said it ;) i might have made a bad pic selection, Ill definitely consider what you said for the future! cheers