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Response to lighting...contrast...

from John Kantor (jkantor@mindspring.com)
If you'll notice, the manipulated version has essentially exaggerated the lighting: the hair now looks backlit, increasing the contrast and between the highlights and shadow detail, while the light on the face has been completely flattened - similar to what you would get if you had a direct light above the camera and significant amounts of fill coming from below - the classic glamour/beauty setup. The current shot looks like open shade, with not enough fill from below. Of course you'd still want to increase the contrast digitally or through appropriate exposure and development.

But my question is, are you doing this to make better portraits - or to get something closer to a fashion or beauty shot look?

Good fashion/beauty photography is a combination of a lot of factors - many of them not related to the photographer's technique. First, your model has to have great skin and makeup, as well as hair color, texture, volume, and styling. The important thing to remember is that makeup and hair for photography are vastly different from everyday looks. (You are creating a two-dimensional image that only has to last for a few minutes - not a three-dimensional one that has to be practical for everyday wear.)

But no matter how good the makeup artist, hairstylist, and lighting, the model is paramount. She is both figuratively and literally the foundation upon which everything else is built. Unfortunately, just because someone is attractive (like this girl) doesn't mean she will make an ideal model. One reason why fashion models are so slender is to accentuate their bone structure. It's that bone structure that catches the light (accentuated by the makeup, of course). A model with a filled-out face like this one, is never going to be able to provide the same impact - though you can certainly create a shot that she will be happy with. The same, of course, applies to the entire figure for fashion shots. A 5'2" glamour model - though perhaps very sexy - is not going to look like a 5'10" fashion model no matter what you do.

Any additional tweaking necessary is easy to do by masking in Photoshop and applying the effects to specific areas. (One thing we forget is that the final fashion, beauty, or glamour shot is never what the photographer creates. It then goes to a digital retoucher - sometimes for a major rework.)

(posted 8105 days ago)

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