How did it happen? It called to me. The moment I saw it in a Matthews catalog, it called to me. All I could hear were the paraphrased words from a great Heart song:

You don’t have to love me yet,

Let’s get high a while,

But try to understand

Try to understand,

Try try try to understand

I’m a Magic Stand, Ohhhh, yea. I’m a Magic Stand.

Magic Man: Written by Ann and Nancy Wilson (1976)

Uh, the last line is what I heard, not what the Wilson sisters wrote. And, by the way, in my mind the second line is not a drug reference —  it’s all about a light stand that extends way up, as high as 12.5 feet.

How do you write about a light stand. I decided not to.

Instead, I decided to make a down and dirty video clip to both show the Magic Stand and give some ideas about how to use it.

In this clip, I show how I use the Magic Stand to create one of my favorite lighting set ups — the Paramount or Butterfly lighting pattern — I use quite often. And, in the clip I put in a special tip that I find very useful when working alone, which is almost all of the time.

The video was shot on my new Kodak Zi8 pocket video camera by my good friend, photographer Ed Bensen and features, in a cameo appearance, model Stephanie Vostry.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT0uoVIuFwY

I think that in cases like this, pictures are worth thousands of words and plan to do some more of these videos. I don’t want to create monsters that take a long time to plan, shoot and edit — so I plan to stick with this format for a while — with one change, I’ll get a clip on mic to improve the sound.

What do you think? You can use the Contact tab on the home page to send comments and suggestions.

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2009)

A couple of weeks ago, my good friend Hanson Fong, fresh off an appearance at the Houston stop on the Beauty and Beast tour, took a day off and hung out with me. So, how did we spend our holiday? Go fishing? Visit one of Houston’s great museums? Take a hike? No. We spent the day in my studio lighting and shooting with a great model, an up and coming MUA, and my new Profoto D1 500 Airs.

Hanson is no stranger to Houston or my studio. He’s taught several of my Hands on Seminars.

Known around the world for his ability to make ordinary people look great — either during weddings or family sessions, Hanson has spent years mastering the art and science of lighting and posing us normal folks, the people who never get on magazine covers or do fashion spreads. No one can bring elegance to the ordinary like Hanson Fong. That’s what he knows, that’s what he does and that’s what he teaches.

So, how did I lure him into the studio on his day off?

I promised him something different — something he rarely gets to do. I promised him we’d do a fashion/glamour shoot. My goal was for both of us to stretch our horizons. Hanson would get a chance to shoot model Stephanie Vostry. I’d get a chance to turn the tables — to light for the man who taught me so much about lighting. But, this time things would be different. I was going to throw out the tried and true and go to the other side — the side where there are no rules or established lighting patterns, the side where in the words of one of my heroes, Joe McNally you try things just to “… see what happens.”

And, I was going to do it with my new lights — lights I had used just a few times before. With a master like Hanson behind the camera I knew that both my D1′s and I would be tested.

The Profoto D1 500 Airs

I did not part with my Profoto ComPact 600′s easily. They were, and are, outstanding lights — true, consistent and rugged.

But, because I try to stay on the cutting edge for both my writing and studio work, I felt it necessary to make the change. And, with Hanson, one of the world’s best shooters in my studio, I would test whether I had made the right decision. I am pleased to report — the D1′s more than passed the test.

Rather than simply parrot back to you technical specifications, I thought I’d discuss some of the D1 Air’s main features and let you know how I think they help us become better photographers.

Why I Chose the 500 ws Version: Less Is Often More

The D1′s come in 250, 500 and 1000ws versions. I’ve written a lot about how I think the important thing, when choosing lights, is not the maximum output but, rather, the power range — or the number of f/stop adjustments available. My main point: we often buy too much power, use the lights in spaces so small that even when dialed down to their minimum output the lights don’t allow us to shoot at the lower f/stops, like 2.8 or 4, that we want to use to throw our background out of focus. An 800ws light, with but 4 stops of range, will go no lower than 100 ws. That’s a lot of light, especially in a small space.

When buying lights — less is often more. That’s why I look at minimum output more than I look at maximum output.

All of the D1 lights have a range of 7 stops. The 500 best fit my needs, offering: 500, 250, 125, 62.5, 31.25, 15.62, and 7.8ws. The 7.8 is what grabbed me most. My ComPact 600′s had a respectable 5 stop range which bottomed out at 37.5. For my use, in a studio that is 34×22, that’s a significant difference.

One other thing, a feature I wrote about here: The D1′s have 300w modeling lights. That’s a lot of power and will be increasingly important to us as our DSLR’s morph into “video” cameras.

The Digital Read Out

I’ve never felt the need for digital read outs — but, if you do, you’ll be pleased to know that the D1′s have a nice, big, clear digital read out on the back of the light.

Once we understand the way the digital read out works, it can be a very useful tool. Some think that if you dial your light to 5.6, the output at your subject is 5.6. Said another way, they think the readout is “absolute” or “the reality”. It is not and cannot be. Why?  Because, we all know that, because of the “fall off” of light, the distance of the light from the subject controls the quantity of light on the subject. Let’s assume that you meter your subject and that, by luck, when the digital read out is 5.6 the meter reads 5.6. So far, so good. But, if you move the light forward the amount of light on the subject will increase; if you move it back, the amount of light on the subject will decrease. That’s a law of physics that no digital light can overcome. But, the digital readout will stay the same — it will say 5.6 although the quantity of light on the subject is either more or less.

In essence, the digital read out is “relative”. Its sole function is to help you move from one stop to another.

So, once one understands the nature of that relativity, the digital read out is an advantage.

Let’s say you take a meter reading at f/8. The dial on the light may say 4. Why? Because the reading is “relative”.  The light simply knows its output. It does not know how far away from the subject it is.

Now, let’s say you want to shoot at f/11 — so you need one more stop of light. All you have to do is turn the dial from 4 to 5. One stop — the difference between f/8 and f/11.

The key to “relativity”? The numbers on the digital read out are not the equivalent of f/stops. They are power range numbers. Going from 4 to 5 is the equivalent of one f/stop (doubling the light).

Once we understand this, we can take full advantage of the digital read out. Up one stop, push in the knob and turn it one click and the read out will go up 10/10ths. Or, click your way up 1/10 of a time by just turning the knob without pushing it in.

To their credit, the D1′s are dead on in their incremental adjustments. If I went from 4.2 to 5.2, I got a full stop. From 6.3 to 7.3, a full stop. They were so accurate that I stopped metering between changes. I trusted the digital readout and it did not fail me.

And, to make things better, as you will see next, I never had to go to the lights to adjust them — I did it wirelessly.

The “Air” System: Wireless Control — A Big Advantage

Simply stated, the Profoto “Air” system allows us to wirelessly control and trigger our Air equipped lights through a camera mounted “Profoto Air Remote” transmitter. You never have to touch the lights — all you have to do is touch the remote. Sort of like sitting in a comfy chair in a media room.

As the owner of a Profoto D4 generator I am addicted to the “remote control” of my lights. On the D4, I accomplish this by tethering to my Mac (written about, here.) Once I started tethering, I never wanted to go back. Walking over to the generator or to each head to adjust it, while good for my fitness, often took me out of my creative flow.

With the Air system, I have the wireless equivalent of “tethering”. I can turn on my lights and adjust them, either individually or in groups, from the transmitter. That is a huge savings in time, focus and energy. And, to be honest, I find myself much more willing to make changes in order to seek perfection — because the changes are so easy to make.

A couple of notes: The D1′s are fairly light and compact and will work well mounted out of reach (like up on the ceiling as a hair light.) Being able to change their output without climbing a ladder to reach them is a big advantage. Apparently, the early production models did not allow one to turn them on remotely; but, once on, they were infinitely adjustable. From what I understand, there is a firmware upgrade that deals with this. New models can be turned on from the remote. Older ones, like mine, can be upgraded, for free, by the factory to meet this new spec.

Triggering and Metering — Dual Option

Profoto has given us the freedom to choose between two options for triggering our D1 Airs.

First, is the Air system itself.

And, second, is through the use of a Pocket Wizard.

I’ve set mine up to do both. I have a lot of Pocket Wizards — I use them both in the studio and to control my off camera flash units. So, when I switched from my ComPacts to the D1′s, I simply left a Wizard attached to each light stand. All I had to do was get a new cable to go from the Wizard to the D1. So, any time I want to use the Wizards, I can.

I thought I would use them a lot. But, truth be told, I haven’t used them at all. I’m not saying I never will — there may be situations where they will do something I can’t do with the Air system, but I haven’t run into that situation yet.

I mention this because when the D1′s first came out, there were wails of angst from many on the ‘net claiming that Profoto had abandoned the Wizard group and that the Wizards could not be used with the D1′s. That statement is categorically false and no one who had ever seen a D1 Air would have ever said such a dumb thing.

(BTW — if you are totally convinced that you will never use the Air system, you can buy the D1′s without it. But, I truly think the wireless remote system is worth the extra cost.)

The second false rumor was that you could not use a Sekonic meter with the D1 Airs. Again, not true.

Here’s the deal: You can meter using your Sekonic meter but you cannot use a built in Pocket Wizard transmitter to do so. Instead, you put your Sekonic meter into the “flash receive” mode, fire the lights with the Air transmitter, and read the setting on the meter.

Ambient/"Lonely"/Corded/Transmitter

Step 1: Put your meter in the receiving mode  ( I call it the Lonely mode because it is unattached to anything and not hooked up) — it’s the lightning bolt without an initial and not  the lightning bolt with the “c” (which is for a cord connection) or the “t” (which is the transmitter mode).  (In this image, the box is around the PW transmitter mode. When over the Lonely lightning bolt, it looks the same.)

Step 4: Push the “Test” button on the Air transmitter. The lights fire. Voila! A reading.

I’ll admit that this is not as easy as it is to meter a pure Wizard based system in which you only need push one button on the meter. But, once used to it, I had no trouble doing it.

And, the payoff for the extra button push is significant: We don’t have to move to adjust the light we just measured; we can adjust it from that very same transmitter, stay in our spot and meter again.

(For those who just want to push one button, you can connect the Air Remote to the meter, use the “C” setting and, when you push the button, you’ll get a reading on the meter.)

Integrating My Non-/Air D4 Generator

One of the reasons I thought I’d use the Wizards on the D1 heads was that my D4 generator was triggered by a built in Wizard. I figured that during the times I used lights from both systems, I’d use the PW’s to trigger them all. But, I haven’t. Instead, I got a Profoto Air Sync, plugged it into the generator and used it to trigger the lights. To be clear, the Air Sync will not allow me to control the lights from the Air Remote. To control the lights, I use my Mac running Profoto Studio Software (which is free and flawless). I hook my D4 to the Mac using a USB cable. If I want to work without the cable, I can use the Profoto Air USB, a dongle that replaces the cord and establishes a wireless connection.

Some General Impressions

Like all Profoto lights, the D1′s are consistent — both in color temperature and flash duration. I’ve measured the output of every Profoto head in my studio (4 D1′s, 4 Acute heads for the D4 generator, 1 Acute head for the 600BR, and one Ringflash) and they are all within 30-50 Kelvin degrees of each other. (I measured without any modifiers on the head. Often, different diffusion materials can affect the Kelvin output of a light — and if you are having color mismatch problems, that might be the place to look first.)

I like the new “build” of the D1′s. They are lighter and have a convenient, built-in handle. They are built to reflect at 77 Degrees without the addition of a reflector — one less thing to carry around. And, though light, they feel rugged.

But, what I like most is that they are wickedly fast — they recycle quickly and match the times of my D4 generator. For anyone who has used other mono-light systems, this speed bump serves us well when trying to capture fluid movements in things like fashion/glamour sessions. (I have the “beeps” set on all of my lights to let the model know not to move until he or she gets the audible signal that the lights are ready for the next pose. With these lights, that beep comes in within a second or so.)

OK, so much for the lights — it’s on to the Busman’s Holiday.

Hanson Fong In the House

The basic plan was to try some new things — lighting patterns I had thought about but never really used. Here are a few of the things we did.

High Key Head Shot

I almost never shoot high key — I’m a moody, low key kind of guy. But, with high key in such great demand, I figured I ought to shoot some. And, inspired by a post on Scott Kelby’s blog, I decided to try a new lighting pattern.

Simply stated, instead of using white paper as a back drop and lighting it carefully to avoid shadows from the subject, I used a Photoflex 7′ OctoDome and a D1 head. The dome became the backdrop. I metered it to f/6.3.

To light Stephanie’s face, I chose a Paramount or Butterfly “glamour” pattern.

The main light was a D1 with a Profoto Softlight Reflector on it. Instead of using a reflector for the fill, I used another D1 head, this time in a CreativeLight soft box. Both lights were mounted on the same Matthews Magic Stand — the Softlight Reflector on the built in boom and the Creative Light on the first riser of the stand. (This set up is the subject of my post here.)

Why the two lights on the same stand? Because, I’m used to working alone. I don’t have someone to hold a reflector, I have reflector stands. But, because the light placement in  Paramount lighting requires precise placement — miss by an inch and it won’t look good — every time the model moves the lights have to be moved. By putting everything on one stand, I can easily make the adjustments by simply pushing the wheeled stand to its new position.

The main light was set to f/11 and the “fill” to f/4.

One thing about this lighting pattern: As Scott points out, because the light from the OctoDome wraps around the face from behind, out of the camera, the image will look faded or wiped out. Don’t worry. The solution is easy. In your post production, you simply use the “Blacks” slider to bring back in the full range of facial color.

I fired off a couple of test shots. This headshot is one of them. From that point on, I put down my camera and became a grip. All of the remaining images in this post are Hanson’s.

Derivations On A Theme: Using the Light As a Structural Element

(You can double click the image to enlarge it.)

With Hanson shooting, we decided to get one more use out of the OctoDome before putting it away. We decided to use it as an element  in the image itself.

To do so, we lowered the light to floor level, moved Stephanie forward, and adjusted the lights, accordingly. We used the same main light on the Magic Stand and, to add some sparkle on the floor and fill in Stephanie’s face and eyes used a 6′ Profoto strip box as a fill, placed well behind the stand and angled up at 45 Degrees. One of the things I like best about this image is the is the reflection on my cement floors and the shadow it throws forward.

I’m going to try this pattern again and, to capture more of the reflection, I’ll shoot with a wider lens.

This short, down and dirty video,show the set up. (I’ve been either doing videos or making drawings of set ups to cover for my “grey moments”.  I keep them all on my computers in an interactive NoteBook from Circus Ponies Software.)

A Couple More Images

We didn’t stay on the odd side of lighting for the entire shoot.

The last part of the shoot focused on what I would call “fusion posing” — Hanson mixing his traditional, elegant portrait and wedding poses with the world of high fashion. We continued to use the Profoto Softlight Reflector and Creative Light soft-box set up discussed earlier. For the low key shots, we added a hair light (indirect lighting from a strip box 14′ up and with the sides parallel to the floor). And, for the “Blue Dress” shot, we added a purple gel and allowed it to spill over a bit onto Stephanie.

All in all, a perfect Busman’s Holiday.

Contact Information:

Hanson Fong

Stephanie Vostry

Christina Duran

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2009)

To Dean Collins, controlling and manipulating contrast was the heart and soul of what we, as photographers, do. Contrast is the tool we use to transform a two dimensional image (height and width) into one that has a third dimension — one that manifests depth, shape and texture.

The magic wand that takes us to this new dimension? Our lighting. Carefully placed and controlled with a strategic plan and an artistic eye, our lights can transform a flat, two-dimensional image into one that jumps off the page.

No one knew this better than Dean. He dedicated a good part of his life to teaching photographers around the world the simple truths about contrast. I’ve already dedicated a newsletter to Dean, mentioned how disappointed I am that I never got to know him, and made clear how profoundly influenced I have been by his teachings.

In this post, I am pleased to be able to share some of those teachings in a review of a new DVD, 3 Dimensional Contrast: Principles of Lighting for the Digital Age, put out by Dean’s legacy company, Software-Cinema. In the video, two of Dean’s best friends and past students, Tim Mantoani and Bill Holshevnikoff do a great job of presenting the concepts and demonstrating them in the studio.

Contrast 101: Part I — The Basics

(More to follow in future posts.)

Perhaps, the most important thing Dean did for us was to give us a vocabulary for use in discussing contrast. “Lighter” and “darker” really don’t cut it.

Dean came up with 3 terms to represent key concepts. They are what Dean would call different light “densities” and appear on the picture below:

The 3 Densities

To really get a handle on contrast and as a first step on the path of learning how to create and control it, let’s talk about what each concept means:

Diffused Value: The diffused value is measured at the place where the light is spread evenly over the subject. It is the area in which we see the true tone or color of the object. In this case, it is the blue color of the 3 Ball. Our task as photographers is to make sure that when we capture this image, the blue we capture is the true blue of the ball. Dean would tell us that the blue is “objective” meaning that there is a way to empirically measure it and replicate it. To properly capture this tone, we must light and meter correctly. If we do, our blue will equal the actual blue of the ball. If we don’t, it will be some other color.

If we use our lights and meter so that every part of the blue ball is be lit in a way that the color is “objective” or consistent throughout the image — the ball will look absolutely flat; it will have no shape, depth or texture; it will look like a dot, not a ball. We will have a “proper” exposure and a boring image — like my dot, below.

Diffused: No Shadow, No Highlight =s No Shape

Compare my “dot” to Dean’s 3 Ball.  It is the shadow and highlight that make Dean’s ball appear to be round and the texture shiny. But, truth be told, they are both truly 2 dimensional — they have height and width — but no depth.

And, therein lies the creative power of contrast: it gives depth and dimension to the image. An all blue dot has no contrast. It is an even, diffused color in all places. So, to give it shape, we must create contrast between the shadows and the blue and the highlights and the blue.

(Want to prove this to yourself? Take the dot into Photoshop or your post production software. Put a shadow on the left side and a highlight on the upper right. The dot will turn round and become a ball.)

Do we want to use our lights to create contrast in all of our images? Is there a place for “flat lighting” — lighting that captures all of the tones in an objective manner, lighting that does not create depth, dimension or texture by way of manufacturing shadows or specular highlights? Is there a time when we want to create “dots” — images that reflect the exact tones of our subject?

Sure. When the depth and texture are coming from somewhere else, we often use flat lighting as a way to best capture it. For example, if we have a model upon whom a make up artist has spent a great bit of time adding shadows and highlights, we might want to light our subject “flat” rather than have our “creative use of light” compete with the make up or destroy the illusion. That make up artist knew where he or she wanted shadow and highlights and might not appreciate our adding more.

That situation is very much the situation I describe in my post on lighting artwork; in this case the model’s face is a work of art and, often, we want to capture it exactly as it was painted.

But, most of us, in the ordinary course of our photography, have to create our own 3rd Dimension; so we move beyond flat lighting and use our manipulation of light and shade to create the contrast that gives us the depth, shape and texture we need to make the image jump.

That’s where Dean’s next two concepts, Shadow and Specular Highlights, come in — they give us the subjective, creative power we need to use our lights to make make the image 3 dimensional by adding contrast.

Dean would tell us that both Shadow and Specular Highlights are subjective. Subjective because we are taking the diffused or “real” tone and artificially changing it so that it becomes darker, in the case of the shadows, and lighter in the case of the highlights. How much lighter or darker? How much contrast between the diffused value and the shadow or highlight? That’s a matter of artistic judgment.

Shadow: In Dean’s world, the term shadow means “shade”. It is an area we create by making sure that it receives less or no light from our light source. Said another way, it is an area that is lower in brightness than the diffused area and, therefore, the color looks darker. How much darker? Matter of artistic judgment. That’s up to us to decide.

Specular Highlight: The specular highlight is the mirrored image of the light source on the image. On the 3Ball, the specular highlight is the direct reflection of the soft box that is lighting the ball. A black-tape cross has been put on the soft box to make sure we know how exact that direct reflection is. The specular highlight is always the brightest point of illumination on the subject.

Now, to test myself to see if I’ve got this right.

Question: Is the white part of the 3Ball with the number on it a specular highlight?

Answer: No.

Grade: A — I got it right. (Okay, so I wrote my own test and wrote a question I could answer, get over it.)

The white part of the 3Ball is not a specular highlight. IT IS SIMPLY THE PROPERLY EXPOSED WHITE PART OF THE IMAGE. Because it is properly exposed, and represents the true tone of the white on the ball, it  is part of the Diffused Value — it is the “objective white”.

Summary of the Basics:

Contrast is something we create with our lighting — something we use to create dimension, depth, shape and texture. We start with getting the actual color of the subject right; Dean called this the Diffused Value. We then use our artistic judgment to create areas of Shadows and Specular Highlights — changes away from the diffused value — to create the contrast that fools the eye into seeing more than a 2 dimensional image. That’s why Dean called the concept 3D Contrast.

Back to the DVD

So far, all we’ve done is explore the basic concepts contained in Dean’s theory of 3D Contrast. In future posts, I’ll apply the concepts.

We now know that the nature of contrast is defined by the following relationships:

Shadow — Diffused Value — Specular Highlights

The DVD sets out to teach us how to manipulate the many variables that control those relationships. The following chart from the Software-Cinema website is the lesson plan followed by the two outstanding teachers:

DVD: Course Outline

Look technical? In some ways it is. But, Mantoani and Holshevnikoff go to great lengths to demystify the concepts and make them useable. I really like their approach. First, they give us the theory. This isn’t always easy to comprehend. I watched some sections a few times before getting a grip on them. And, then, they go into the studio and apply them. I’ve always thought that the sign of good teachers was their ability to find the nexus between theory and praxis. These guys are good teachers.

Easy to grasp? For me, not really. Because, I never fully appreciated contrast. I was one of those push the slider around guys. I knew that to create depth and dimension I had to add shadows to light objects and highlights to the dark ones — but I never understood how to get the precise control over those tasks that the creation of top notch images demands.

Thanks to Dean’s brilliance and this DVD, I understand the importance of contrast and how to create and control it. My lighting is more focused and my images much improved.

Thanks to all who have made this DVD possible.

But wait, there’s more!

Software-Cinema has very kindly allowed me to share this short clip from the DVD with you — the segment, from the chart above, that deals with controlling the Surface Edge Transfer by controlling the Surface Edge Efficiency. The pay off for most of us? We will understand how and why make up on our subjects helps protect against shiny skin.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC9dNLN7aUE

And, even more!

Software-Cinema gives our students a 15% discount on all of their products. See something you want? Go to their website and order using this discount code: PRAIRIE08

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2009)

Nowhere is the battle against specular highlights more pronounced than when one tries to photograph a framed piece of artwork.

“Specular highlights” a direct reflection of the light source on a subject, also known as “glare”, is the bane of all who try to photograph reflective surfaces. It’s also an issue with me. My eye gets caught when I can see the reflection — like seeing a softbox in a wine glass — and I can’t appreciate the bigger picture.

So, when my friend, artist Ann Boucher, asked me to photograph some of her drawings and watercolors for a new website the first question I asked was, “Is it framed?” “Yes”. “Non reflective glass?” “No.” “Will you take it out of the frame?” “Are you kidding?” I wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. There were 40 pieces, all beautifully and professionally framed, and I was going to be forced to learn to light them the right way.The traditional wisdom seems to be to light the objects with the direct light from two soft boxes each at a 45° angle from the glass surface. The camera is then put perpendicular (90° from the surface) and since, like a billiard ball, the “angle in” of the light equals the “angle out”, the camera should not capture any reflection. But, often it does — because it is difficult to evenly light the surface with direct lighting.

I didn’t even try to use the 45/45 solution.

Instead, I turned to a form of lighting I learned from John Woodward, one that has become the mainstay of most of what I do — Indirect Lighting.

Here’s my lighting set up:

The key to Indirect Lighting is the placement of the light sources. I placed my soft boxes with the fronts perpendicular to the object and directly across from each other. One might ask: “If the lights are not facing the subject, where is the light on the subject coming from?” And, therein lies the key: The light on the subject is being reflected off  the front most wall — the wall closest to the camera —  onto the glass. In this case, I moved the soft boxes so that the reflection from the front wall of the box was hitting the glass at about a 35° angle. Because there is no direct light hitting the glass, there is no specular highlight or glare for the camera to capture.

All of my exposures came out absolutely flat — as though there were no glass in the frame. It’s that simple.

Here’s a little more about my set up and shooting protocol:

The black rectangle represents the drawing. To get the surface parallel to the lens, I hung it on a Matthews C Stand and used the arm to set the vertical angle. I then took out my carpenters level and made sure the frame was level, on all planes. I did the same with the camera and lens.

I used two, Profoto ComPact 600 lights mounted in Profoto 2×3 soft boxes. On still or product shots like this, I usually don’t use the strobes. I use the ComPacts as constant or “hot lights” by using the modeling lights, only. The nice thing about the Profoto’s is that they are consistent in every way — output and color temperature — so using the modeling lights as the origin of the lights is no problem. In these situations, I like the fact that when using constant lighting “what you see is what you get” (wysiwyg).

If you usually shoot strobes in the studio, here are a few things to remember: (1) set the camera White Balance to “tungsten” or “incandescent”; (2) meter in the “ambient” mode; (3) the room lights will affect the image — turn them off; and,  (4) shutter speed and camera movement will affect the image (which is why I shot mounted to my camera stand).

[FYI -- If there is enough interest, I'll teach a "constant light" or "hot lights" course, soon. Use the Contact section to let me know if you're interested.]

I used my Nikon D3 and my Nikkor 50mm f1.8 lens. From what I’ve learned from John, on a full sensor DSLR, the 50 mm is the lens that best approximates 1:1 normal eyesight. Said another way, it is more likely to put the image on the sensor in the same way that the eye is seeing it.  I really like this lens — it’s the least expensive Nikon lens I own (under $200.00), yet it is one of the sharpest and fastest in my bag. The resolution of the images of Ann’s artwork is stunning — something I really can’t show on this website. My friend Ed says they look like hi-res scans.

As many of you who know me know, I don’t do anything the easy way. If there is a way to learn something new, I’ll take a simple shoot and make it more complex — just to see if I can learn or use something new.

I’ve been experimenting with Nikon’s Live View and decided to use it on this shoot. I set the camera release mode to LV, connected the camera to my MacBook Pro, and started up Nikon’s Control Pro 2 soon, I had a window in which the computer was seeing exactly what was hitting the sensor. Any adjustments I made on the camera, from focus to color balance, were immediately visible on the computer screen. With something as delicate and demanding as catching the fine lines in this art, LV was the way to go. The large screen preview was way better than I could have achieved through the eyepiece or on the LCD. I focused and shot using the controls in LV.

[I'll write a complete "How to Use Live View" post, soon.]

Gray Card for White Balance

The final step before going into “production shooting” was to shoot a gray card — something to use to set the WB in post-production. This is a step I almost always take. Although my lights are dead on accurate, I do this as a fail-safe procedure. I shot one reference image and used it for everything I shot during the session.

Post Production:

A. WB and Color Correction

One constraint limits the post production on art work: There is a “reality” that must be respected. The artist chose her colors carefully. She made her brush strokes and pencil lines deliberately.  It’s not within the photographer’s discretion to make them different or “better”. Adjustments to either must be made with the actual work sitting next to the monitor.

And, speaking of the monitor — it has to be calibrated. That’s the only way to know that the adjustments we are making will actually make the image we are creating more accurate. Both of my monitors, the MacBook Pro on which I shot the images and the Apple and Samsung monitors on which I edited them, were calibrated with my X-Rite colormunki.

However, that, in itself really does not solve the entire color consistency problem. Because, no matter how accurate we are and no matter how rigorous our standards, if our work is viewed or exhibited on someone else’s un-calibrated monitor, the colors will not show true. Truth be told, I don’t know how any of this will look on your monitors.

I really wonder how artists can sell their work from online images. The same rings true for vendors like the rug merchant whose store is next to my studio. More than once he’s sold a rug online only to have it sent back because it didn’t look “so blue” online. Truth was, it was blue and the online image on a calibrated monitor showed it to be so. But, the customers monitor showed it to be something else.

X-Rite has taken a step toward trying to solve this problem by creating the colormunki Digital Pouch — which lets you embed your color profiles into the images you are delivering. When your clients receive them, they open them up in a special window and IF the clients’ monitors are calibrated, the colors they see are the colors you saw.

OK, back on track. The post was very simple.

I opened the images in Adobe Camera Raw. [In several upcoming posts, I'll be writing a lot about RAW processor wars and RAW workflow. I am slowly becoming a big fan of Nikon's NX2; in many ways, I think it starts with a more true image that requires less adjustment. But, it also has limitations and, when I know I have issues that only Photoshop can cure, I start out with ACR.]

To make sure I didn’t have color cast issues, I click balanced on the gray card, synchronized the WB setting. (The “as shot” was within 50°’s Kelvin of the corrected. the change was really not necessary, but, what can I say, I’m anal.)

Holding the framed image up near the monitor, I tweaked the clarity and vibrance settings — and I mean tweaked, just a very slight movement.

I opened the images up as Smart Objects in Photoshop (so that I could easily go back to ACR and reprocess the RAW image if I chose to.)

I had a problem that needed correcting. No matter how careful I was in trying to get the frame square with the camera lens, I was not able to make it perfect. So, I used the Filter>Distort>Lens Correction tool to straighten out the horizontal and vertical planes.

Lens Distortion Correction Tool -- Photoshop

Finally, I cloned out the Matthews arm and cropped the image to its finished size.

It took a lot longer to write about it than it took to do it all.

The key? Indirect lighting. Try it.  It’s easy. And, it works.

Another Drawing From Ann

By: Ann Boucher

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2009)