POTD: Tiana in the Studio

Tiana Hunter

It is nice to do something glamorous once in a while. It makes for a nice change of pace from landscape photography.

Studio lighting doesn’t have to be super complicated. The only light in this scene comes from a window at camera left. The window was covered with a diffusion screen to soften the light. Tiana’s angle to the light was very important. I changed her angle back and forth until the shadows on her face were exactly where I wanted them. To make this a lot simpler the model should be on something with rollers so you can easily adjust the angle to the light. An inch or two of angular rotation in either direction made a big difference. If you have studied art you will notice the triangle of light on her left cheek that is indicative of Rembrandt lighting.

One advantage of professional models is they know how to pose, and they can also take suggestions from the photographer. We worked on several different poses.

An aperture of f/9 gave me enough depth of field for her face. Thanks to the diffused window light the light levels were much lower that you would expect from looking at this photo. I raised the ISO to 400 but even at that I ended up with a shutter speed of 0.3 seconds. 1/3 of a second is pretty slow to be doing portraits. My camera was on a tripod to give me extra support, but the ball head was not locked in position so I had flexibility of movement. I was careful to be very steady and Tiana did not move. She would breath in between clicks of the shutter.

I metered the brightest part of her face and added one stop of light to the shutter speed the camera meter suggested (plus 1 exposure compensation).

Photo Data: Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 24-105mm lens at 47mm. f/9, 0.3 seconds, ISO 400.

Links

Tiana Outdoors

Excellent “How To Photograph People” Books

The Best Book On Photographic Lighting

If you want the best colors your camera can produce, you need great exposures (see the next link). Exposures that are off in the camera create color issues that you can’t correct later in Photoshop. That is why professionals are so obsessed with nailing the exposure. If your exposures aren’t spot on, read Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies, one of the highest rated books at Amazon.com. Learn more here and order it here.

The Best Colors Come From the Best Exposures

How To Test Your Camera’s Color Exposure Latitude

Tiana Hunter – Model

Tiana Hunter – Photographer