Portrait Demo: Siobhan Ridgeway
(Albumen Simulation)
 

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(This is the 3rd shot used from the Demo with Siobhan) These are shots from a demo in Portraiture Photo 220 class at City College.  Camera was a Canon 1Ds MkII with a Diffused Hasselblad/Zeiss 150mm lens set at f11

 Lights Used:
I wanted a soft, romantic, feel to the shot but also wanted to make it reminiscent of some old time portraits.  So I kept the lighting very simple.  The Key Light was a Softbox to simulate window light, and a refelctor panel for fill are the primary lights.  I gave in to the modern styles with a hair/back light to help separate the subject from the background and add life to her hair.
  1. Main/Key Light (Large Softbox
    set for Narrow / Rembrandt Lighting)
     
  2. Fill Light (White Reflector Panel)
     
  3. Hair/Kicker (10" reflector with diffusion gel)
     
  4. Background (No light on background)

 
1.  Original Shot From Camera (almost).

This, by the way, is Frame #1.  AS I said in class, I knew this was a good one when I tripped the shutter.

There was a light flare in the original (because my lens hood came unglued) that was corrected tonally in the Raw Converter.  That is, however, creating a slight color imbalance.

Because of that I decided to also use this shot to demonstrate some portrait/fashion style retouching ...
2.  Here is the result of some major softening using Photoshop tools including the "Dust and Scratches" and "Gaussian Blur."

Since Siobhan teaches fashion photography it seemed appropriate to go for a more "fashion" level of retouching.

However after seeing it retouched I realized how much it reminded me of old time photos so I applied the steps to simulate an old, deteriorating Albumen print.

 
3.  And here is the final version. 

On the actual print you can see the simulated scratches and discoloration from being kept in a wood-pulp mat for years. It also has the edge distortion typical of many old simple and uncoated lenses.

Siobhan kept telling me how hard she is to photograph.  Really?  I wish all of my subjects were this difficult!

 

 

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