Ben Rubinstein
pro member
Hi,
I teach photography in a local art school. The third lesson this year continuing the theme of 'light' involved creating light. We had learnt about capturing and manipulating light but now was the time to learn how to create it using a blank slate. Or in other words, using artificial lighting, in this case flash. A full write up of the lesson is on my blog here: http://thedustylenscap.com/2012/10/23/a-bit-of-fun-in-the-classroom/
In any case one of the things I demonstrated was lighting for a silhouette portrait which has since become the profile picture on my facebook and a rather treasured self portrait as I had planned it for some 6 months and imagined it for many many years. Here it is:
I get a call last week from a wonderful young singer who had seen the portrait and wanted to commission me to shoot the cover for her new album using the same concept. We threw around a few ideas and came up with this concept. The idea of using shape to make the singer one with the instruments which she plays so well. This is what we shot this morning. Of course now it goes to the designers for adding the text, etc but she was very happy with the result. A very clean and simple 'look' which she feels reflects her music.
This like the self portrait above was shot with two softboxed lights on the background and pretty much nothing else. The instruments were held up with string (you can't get fishing wire here in Jerusalem!) and PS'd out afterwards.
We also did a straight portrait for use on the back of the album, again a clean simple shot using just a single light with an octobox for Rembrandt (ish) lighting, high and just a bit off to one side.
I have to say, give me a roll of white seamless and a couple of lights and I couldn't be happier! Simple, easy and just so much fun.
I teach photography in a local art school. The third lesson this year continuing the theme of 'light' involved creating light. We had learnt about capturing and manipulating light but now was the time to learn how to create it using a blank slate. Or in other words, using artificial lighting, in this case flash. A full write up of the lesson is on my blog here: http://thedustylenscap.com/2012/10/23/a-bit-of-fun-in-the-classroom/
In any case one of the things I demonstrated was lighting for a silhouette portrait which has since become the profile picture on my facebook and a rather treasured self portrait as I had planned it for some 6 months and imagined it for many many years. Here it is:
I get a call last week from a wonderful young singer who had seen the portrait and wanted to commission me to shoot the cover for her new album using the same concept. We threw around a few ideas and came up with this concept. The idea of using shape to make the singer one with the instruments which she plays so well. This is what we shot this morning. Of course now it goes to the designers for adding the text, etc but she was very happy with the result. A very clean and simple 'look' which she feels reflects her music.
This like the self portrait above was shot with two softboxed lights on the background and pretty much nothing else. The instruments were held up with string (you can't get fishing wire here in Jerusalem!) and PS'd out afterwards.
We also did a straight portrait for use on the back of the album, again a clean simple shot using just a single light with an octobox for Rembrandt (ish) lighting, high and just a bit off to one side.
I have to say, give me a roll of white seamless and a couple of lights and I couldn't be happier! Simple, easy and just so much fun.
