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Vertical Portraits with Just One Light

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I had an unexpected call for a portrait today and had only one light working. I used 50 W/S shining into an 8ft vertical V of white styrofoam (two panels of 8ftx2 ft hinged to form a V) and the reflected light comes baqck through a large white umbrella. The umbrella is above and 45 degrees to subjects and to one side and the other side is another vertical V of white styrofoam card to reflect light back from the other side of the subjects who stand in from to white seamless.



_MG_0738_TRO_600.jpg


Asher Kelman: Portrait for Trio competition 5D Mark 1, Lumedyne 50 Watt Secs, f5.6, ISO 400 No Retouch



This is part of a set of images I'll prepare. I thought I'd share the image as processed from Phase One's Capture One software. The main work to be done is whitening background, no big deal.

Asher
 

Walt Conley

New member
Does it count if the "one light" is the sun? Taken on 35mm Kodak Tmax 100, scanned from a print. This was taken of a friend at the entrance of a castle door above Cologne Germany. The day had a light overcast providing a perfect half-sphere light source. Although in the scanned image, the face is a little hotter than I would like, the overall picture came out as I imagined highlighting her blonde hair against the dark background while showing soft shadows in the fold of her leather jacket.
original.jpg
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Walt,

Does it count if the "one light" is the sun? Taken on 35mm Kodak Tmax 100, scanned from a print. This was taken of a friend at the entrance of a castle door above Cologne Germany. The day had a light overcast providing a perfect half-sphere light source. Although in the scanned image, the face is a little hotter than I would like, the overall picture came out as I imagined highlighting her blonde hair against the dark background while showing soft shadows in the fold of her leather jacket.
Indeed, the face is a little blown out, but the dark jacket against the dark background works amazingly well - a better-than-textbook example of "shadow detail".

And of course a way cute subject.
 

Damien Paul

New member
These are very nice pictures - I don't know if it just me, but with one light, it seems more natural and relaxed. If the sun is counted as one light, i will try and dig out one of my own.
 
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