Senior Portraits - Something More Artistic

If you are following the blog, then you know that I have been exploring light in my images. I've been doing a series of experiments to test different lighting setups and practicing my post production editing skills to combine a subject with an HDR background. This is serious fun for and probably a bit geeky for some of you. So if you are interested in how this image was created, I'll share some of the basics without being too exhaustive.

Lighting is the first key thing to look at in the image. There are 5 light sources total: Three on the subject and two in the background. The subject is Peyton and was shot in my studio in Knoxville. She is lit with two bright edge lights that are slightly behind her. A third light from the front and slightly above the eyes fills in the front and creates some soft shadows under the nose and eyes without letting those areas get too dark. Note that this is reversed from classic portrait lighting in that the light in the front of the subject is a fill light not a key light. For some reason, I love this lighting style but I'm not sure why. I do find that my eyes stay with the image longer and it just seems to draw me in. Maybe, it's because I've seen the classic portrait lighting my whole life, not sure.

The background is an alley in Milwaukee, WI that I took during a recent business trip. There was no direct sunlight hitting the alley, only open shade. The image was shot from the entrance of the alley so there was some reflection of light from the street and other buildings. You can see the edge of the brick near the windows is implying some direction of light. The 5th source is a reflection from a neighboring building on the fire escape in the upper left corner of the image. The background was shot as an HDR with most of the adjustments turned way down. I just wanted to get the details from the shadows without giving it the over cooked HDR look that folks seem to not like.


Blending the two images together involves cutting out the subject from the studio background. The challenge here is the hair. Then finding the right background image. The details go beyond the scope of this blog post, but it involves quite a bit of work. I'm still slow and have much to learn, but I'm having a blast.

Thanks for stopping by!