Getting it right before you go to post processing!

I'm as guilty as anyone of putting a camera in RAW mode, setting the white balance to AWB and flailing away with the idea that I can fix it all in post.  And from a purely scientific point of view I am sure you can fix color in post given enough time and a discriminating eye.  But since the eye is a great comparator and a lousy rememberer wouldn't it be better if that was one of the things that we figured out up front?  Makes for one less step in post production and it's a step (in post)  that can adversely effect exposure settings, contrast settings and more.

I started to take this seriously when I sat through one of Will Crockett's workshops and heard him talk about his Jpeg centered process of "Kill it and Bill it." His philosophy is that careful incident exposure metering, coupled with nailing white balance at the outset means that you can use images right out of camera.

I didn't go jpeg but I put the time savings of correct, upfront, white balance to the test yesterday on a commercial shoot.  My friend, Lane, hired me to take photos of doctors and clinicians for a local sports medicine practice.  I wanted to make sure my flesh tones were consistent from set up to set up and I wanted to spend less time doing corrections before putting up web galleries for selection ( you can tell people til you are blue in the face that the uncorrected galleries are just thumbnails and will be color corrected but you will prevent much friction and second guessing if you just get the color and exposure on the money before you make the jpegs for the galleries.....) so I could efficiently spend time with the finals instead.

I used a Lastolite collapsible gray target to set my white balance for each set up.  I like to use the gray because the white requires you to really nail the exposure for the most accurate color.  Cameras seem to nail gray better....... My Lastolite is custom made for Will Crockett and has a focus target in the middle so I don't have to set my camera to manual focus or let it hunt.  The regular ones don't have the target but you could add your own with a Sharpie.

Long story all summed up.  Using an incident light meter let me know that there was a half stop difference between what I saw on the back of the camera on the LCD and what the actual exposure was.  The calibration out of the box was one half stop dark which made my files half a stop too light.  The gray card custom white balance setting meant that every single frame matched and required NO tweaking.  Interesting how a sensible shooting workflow can save hours on the back end.  Very nice.
I'd gotten lazy.  I'll fix that.  We're getting busy again so it's time to figure out all the ways to be more productive in a fixed time frame.  Ahhhhhh.

Have you ever had one of those days when things took a turn for the better?

                             Fun Test Shot with a friend.


I'm out of practice.  I tried to keep shooting portraits as last year devolved into one of the circles of Purgatory but it's hard to keep the creative wheels turning when doom and gloom looms all around you.  My portrait lighting skills were starting to take a hit.  Then I ran into Selena at a coffee shop and she needed a headshot and I wanted a model.  I think we both won.

We met last week and spent an hour working on posing and lighting.  I ended up using my big Octabank and my Elinchrom Ranger RX AS pack with one head for the main light.  My studio is all white so it's pretty "live".  I'd been lighting my fill too much lately, no doubt because some corporate client I took on in a moment of self induced desperation bitched about my shadows being too dark.  I remember the conversation so well.  It was short and it went like this:

Client: "What's wrong with the light on Bob's face?"

Me:   "I'm sorry, I don't understand.  What do you mean?"

Client:  "Well, it's a very nice picture but the light on his face isn't even.  It gets dark over to one side!"

Me:  "We call that modeling.  It's a way of adding some dimension to peoples' faces.  Makes portraits look more three dimensional.  Gives the light a sense of direction."

Client:  "Can you fix that somehow?"

Me:  "Well, it's supposed to be that way.  It's a creative thing."

Client:  "Is there some way to fix it in Photoshop?  I'm pretty sure Bob's not going to like being uneven...."

Me:  "But that's the same style that's in most of the portraits on my website...."

Client:   "Hmmmmm.  So you don't think you can fix it?"

It's exchanges like this that make me appreciate my wife's adamant rule of "no guns" in the studio.  But it's weird how a few toxic clients can subtly shift that line that makes an insecure portrait photographer dilute and devolve their own style.

Before Selena came over I looked over some of my favorite work and the work by some of the photographers I really admire.  I decided to aim my taste meter in the right direction and to resurrect what I liked with the hopes that it will find its audience.

When I set up the lighting I re-acquainted myself with a favorite old tool, subtractive lighting.  I grabbed a black panel and put it on the opposite side of her face from the main light.  I brought the black in pretty close because I wanted deep shadows.  I grabbed a little Alien Bees ringlight that I use all the time for a background light and put it on the gray seamless at a really low power.  MMMMMM.  Just right.

Then I shot with a longer lens than I've used in a while.  I'm happy with the light and the skin tone.  When we finally decide on an image I'll fix the stray hairs and the few wrinkles in the shirt.  But count me happy with my lighting and the general look.  And I think her expression is just wonderful.

My portrait lighting is back and it's really changed my mood.  It's devastating when your mastery takes a vacation without putting it up on the scheduling board.  It's always wonderful when it comes back home with a nice tan, a few pounds lighter.  I don't know if Selena likes the work we did.  I haven't talked to her yet.  But for a change, the only validation I was looking for was mine.