Hi this is Joe McNally for AdoramaTV,
and in this segment, I'm going to talk about creating smooth light,
for a smooth face and a harder
edgier light, for face that's a little rougher and a little more weathered.
AdoramaTV presents, Photo On The Go with Joe McNally.
So the portrait of the
smooth beautiful face you see over my shoulder,
I used a bigger light source. One that I'm very, very happy with lately,
is a 3x3, it's called a skylight rapid,
and if you say put your subject here,
you know profile it into the light, here's your camera angle obviously over here,
the light can really wrap around your subject very beautifully.
But 3x3 is a lot of light area to manage.
Say you only have one Speedlite, you know this can accommodate more than that,
2, 3 even. But the thing about the rapid is
it has these velcro masks, so you can block this down and create
a smaller softbox you could take these velcro masks
and make this into a strip light if you would.
A 1x3, lots of variety that comes along
with this particular skylight rapid kit, and that produces,
of course, being a big source, a smooth beautiful profile light.
Now, the face over my shoulder in this instance is not
youthful. This is a wonderful face,
got a lot of character. This is a face that has seen a lot.
So you don't want to use perhaps, a smooth beautiful light
for a face like this. Ok, in this instance
I used an overhead softbox, say, let's just take this and adapt it here a little bit,
there's my subject,
I took a C-Stand, again, my tried-and-true favourite, sort of,
light shaping support, ok, and I put a
2x2 softbox overhead of the face. That creates the
overall level of light.
But then I snapped the face really, really powerfully
and this is a very wonderful technique, a lot of photographers use by using a ring flash.
Ring flash is the quintessential,
classic, on access fill, because it actually
is a ring that goes right around your lens.
So, there is absolutely no, you know, sort of,
angle to the light, you know it's coming
at your subject, from the exact same direction
that the image plane and the lens are coming at your subject. So in some ways
it is almost like a shadowless light, because any shadows that it throws
mimics the shape the subject, and it throws it straight back, depending of course on
your angle and height.
But, I refer to this as a ring flash, I think it's an appropriate name because
I call it a wake-up call for the eyes.
A little low-power into a ring flash for your subject pops their face.
Hi, Joe McNally here for Adorama,
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Pro photo ring, ok, obviously go right around my lens right here,
ok, and it pops or fills. As they say, think of it,
ring flash; think of it as a wake-up call for the eyes,
and depending on how much power you put into it,
it can either be a very dominant light which will look very garish,
or it can just be a little wink right at the camera that opens up the detail,
especially in a face like you have here. Ok, you want to see all those lines and ridges.
This is Joe McNally for AdoramaTV,
talking to you about a smooth light for a smooth face, but a light with more pop and
edge for face that has character.
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