October 23, 2009

Action Model Shot #4


One cannot pass-up taking a straight portrait of an attractive model in front of a colorful sunset, graphic elements and water. And, I did not.

The colors of Kelly’s outfit worked perfectly with the sunset. I lit Kelly with a Nikon SB800 (1/4th power) with a small softbox at camera right and a Nikon SB800 (1/8th power) at camera left. The light from the Nikon SB800 on the left was feathered slightly in front of Kelly so to keep it soft while still filling in the shadows.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 at 86mm, shot at ISO 200, f/5.6 and 1/60th of a second with a SB-800 at 1/4th and 1/8th power on each side of and pointed at Kelly.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, added clarity.

Photoshop—used photo pop filter of Topaz Adjust on everything in the photo except Kelly.

8 comments:

  1. Love the exposure on this one. The lighting setup is perfect. The color is nice as is the setting. I'm at odds with the larger ship behind the subject taking some focus away from her. I can't decide if it should be cropped out. When I remove it from my view there seems to be more focus left on the young lady.

    Nice job as usual.

    DHaass

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  2. The ship I'm referring to is at the left edge of the frame. It does seem to add some balance to the shot, so that's why I'm at odds with my own question about the crop.

    DHaass

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  3. If this was a portrait of me, I would be extremely happy with it. The lighting is great, her expression is perfect and the colors are striking. Like this a lot.
    Debbie

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  4. Nice lighting, pose, setting and composition! A beautiful portriat!

    Well done!
    Barry

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  5. Ditto all of the above.

    This might also work well with a tighter crop, even though you'd have to sacrifice some of the interesting (...or maybe distractive?)environmental elements in the background.

    Consider yourself crop-whipped! :-)

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  6. I hope Kelly can use this image for one of her travel shots, the sunset and the warm light on her combine really nicely. I am where Doug is as far as the large dark ship on the far left...it does add to the travel/cruise ship theme but also draws your eye away from her a bit. Either way it is a very nice portrait.

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  7. For me, the ship on the left serves two purposes: it anchors the image on the left thus keeping the eye from leaving the frame on the left and it adds context to the photo (at a port). With or without the ship, it is a beautiful image.
    Anne

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  8. It also helps complete the diagonal theme across the photo. Good point Anne.

    DHaass

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