Kiama-Shellharbour Camera Club

On June 7, we’ll be treated to a talk on printer information. This should be very informative for the digital workers!

At last week’s KSCC meeting, we had local professional photographer Jason Cole from Jason Cole Photography demonstrate studio portraiture techniques for us. His assistant Paul Pennell came along, and he brought local model Sally Snell as his subject.

For his main camera, Jason shoots with a Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II. This is a 17.6 megapixel camera - most magazines nowadays demand at least 10 megapixel files, as much to weed out the less-serious ‘dabblers’ as for practical quality reasons. He uses an Apple PowerBook on-site for file backup and image reviewing, and has a Quad G5 PowerMac desktop (hooked up to a massive 30-inch monitor!) for the heavy Photoshop work.

Jason brought his studio lighting setup and backdrop kit, as well as his Broncolor Mobil Studio lighting kit. Both the studio lighting and the Broncolor Mobil use the same softboxes (measuring 120cm by 80cm), giving beautiful diffuse lighting that avoids the harsh shadow outlines created by on-camera flash. One of the big differences between the two kits is in the recycle time - the studio kit can fire every 2 seconds on maximum output, whereas the battery-powered Broncolor takes about 10 seconds to recharge.

Click on any photograph on this page to view a larger version. Most photographs are arranged into ’sets’ - you can click on the right half of the photo to see the next one in the set, or click on the left half of the photo to see the previous one.

The two photographs below illustrate the difference between direct flash and a softbox lighting system.

The first shot was taken with a flash mounted on top of the camera. Note how the direct light bleaches out Sally’s skin tones and produces a two-dimensional image with sharp-edged shadows.

The second shot was taken with the two softboxes, one on Sally’s left to light her from the front and side, and the other behind and to her right to provide the rim-lighting along her right arm. Note how the image looks more three-dimensional, showing the contours of her body. Her skin tone also looks very natural.

Even though his lighting system is colour-balanced to provide light with a daylight colour temperature, Jason likes to shoot with his camera set to Cloudy white balance for a slight warm shift. This makes the model’s skin look a little more tanned and healthy, and gives a pleasing overall look. Little things like this help to get the best images possible straight from the camera, minimising the time needed to make corrections in Photoshop later. The two photographs below demonstrate this.

Another little thing to be aware of is how close your model gets to your lights. Without realising it, your model may edge closer to the lights as she changes poses and moves around on the set. This can cause the exposure readings to change, and if you’re not careful you’ll get blown-out areas of skin (if she gets too close to the light) or underexposure (if she gets too far away). In the second picture below, you can see Sally’s left arm is just starting to get a bit ‘hot’ compared to the rest of her skin.

Jason showed us a lighting technique he uses to do some of his studio art photography. He sets up one softbox to the side of the model, bringing her forward almost to the front edge of the softbox so the light is shining directly across her body. He then sets up a second softbox on the opposite side and behind the model to provide rim lighting. The angle of the light from the first softbox shows up every muscle and curve on the model’s body.

And now for a few more shots of Sally in various poses:

Of course, everyone likes to have their photograph taken with a model:

The Club would like to give a hearty thanks to Jason, Paul and Sally for a wonderful demonstration. We all learned a lot about studio portraiture and posing, and Paul gave us a few good laughs as well.

If you admired Paul’s work, you can see more shots of him in action here. And no, you can’t have his job.

On May 21 we’ll be heading up to the Highlands for some autumn photography. The leaves should be spectacular at this time of year!

More details to come.

Our club competition on May 17 has the subject Portrait People.