Hi guys, I'm Karl Taylor... in this short tutorial we're going to shoot
this picture and I'll show you step by step how this was done. When we get to
the end of the video, I'm just going to go over a couple of extra tips for you,
so stick with me till the end of the video and we'll review that image.
I'm going for a simple beauty portrait. My main light is going to be
the Octabox 150 and then I've got the 31/20 strip light softbox on
this side which is giving me a little bit of an edge light down the side of
Jessica's face here and then over on this side I'm putting a blue gel
light through this frosted perspex, to give a lovely blue glow down this side
of Jessica's cheekbone and neck so we've got a warm light / cold light scenario.
Then, further to that, I've just got a background light, just a
standard reflector dish (no grid)
I use grids sometimes as well. What I like with the Pulso light is the focus
position can allow me to feather the light and I find in that
feathered position it just gives me a really nice gradient blend at this
area here on my background - I just quite like it but I do use the grids as well.
So - just got a couple of tweaks to make and I'm ready
to shoot these shots and see how this looks with the softbox.
OK Jessica that's good. Just turn a fraction, that's it there lovely.
Just get my focus good, excellent. I'm just shooting this one at f/4
just to give a little bit of shallower depth of field just so we've got the focus
"That's completely open?" Yeah, pretty much open. This lens
is a 3.2 so we have a little bit more. But f/4 will give me
just about the right depth of field that I need on this shot. And I think that's
pretty much it... so basically,
as I said, I've got just a slight brighter exposure down this side of the face from
the 30/120 softbox, then the main exposure on the face from the big
Octabox... the blue gel light here and then that
gradient glow on the background.
Thanks for watching guys. Let's take another look at that photo in a little
bit more detail. Now the main objective of this picture was the warm light, cold
light scenario that I've got going on here. So I've got a neutral light on this
side from the main Octabox softbox, then we've got this lovely cold light which
essentially, to most viewers, is the shadow side but I'm filling in that
shadow side with a little bit of blue light. When you fill in the shadow side
with blue light it generally retains the look of shadows but it gives this extra
dimension to the picture which I really like so I use that technique quite quite
a lot as well. Now if we look at the edge of the face there's also the extra edge
light coming down the side of Jessica's face from that additional 30/120
softbox and then we have the gradient glow on
the background on the dark grey just letting that gradient glow
come up above the shoulders to separate the body from the background. There's lovely
catch light in the eyes from the Octabox and by having it over to one side, we
get a little bit more three dimensionality than you would in a
beauty shot from the front. I hope you enjoyed that short tutorial I'm Karl
Taylor - Thanks very much for watching.