The purpose of this shoot was to create an environmental portrait for an upcoming website, focused on sharing creative (Digitally and handmade) products.
The image needed to be clean, but still feel warm and homey.
To achieve this, the studio was set up in our living room, having my wife as model.
During the shoot ambient light was combined with the output of two softboxes.
First, the desired exposure for the ambient light was set around 1/125s at F2,0 ISO 100.
Second a key light was added on camera left and a fill light (with orange gel) on camera right.
The two 60×60 softboxes are each powered with a Godox speedlite V860II with manually selected flash output. The light was captures trough a 55mm F1,8 prime lens.
Post production is (more than some might admit) a key part of photography, especially when shooting in RAW format.
The main edits for this shoot contained: Local exposure adjustments (dodging and burning), removing rogue hairs and removing specular highlight. See for yourself in the images below:
On the left (first) the final image and on the right (second) the RAW image straight out of camera.
Some (including myself) are nervous they would be less valued as a photographer if people knew which edits took place to create the end result. If you feel the same way, keep in mind, editing is about making a good image even better, not fixing a bad one.
Although it is satisfying to get the most done “in-camera”, shooting with a specific edit in mind is a great skill to have.
It’s the ability to visualize the edit before or during the shoot in order to make the RAW image best suitable for the edit you have in mind.
For me as a photographer, the following editing principles are in place:
An image stays “original” if it’s finished using basically the features of Lightroom, such as overall & local exposure adjustments and color & lens corrections.
Removing distractions (like specular highlights or an occasional pimple,…) is accepted but when someone starts adding stuff in (like a sky replacement), the photograph on it’s own is no longer seen as “original”.
Images like composites are not something to look down upon but they should be considered / judged as a different art form in my opinion.
Thanks you for reading along.