Addicted to color

Addicted to color

Model : Silvana
MUA : Esther
Photographer : Frank Doorhof





Greetings,
Frank

Very interesting to a layman. Would you have a shot without the paint tubes? Just the colors? That might be interesting as well. The tubes just irritate my glamorously untrained eye for some reason but I do like the paint colors, swirls, etc.

Hi Frank,

Fabulous fun and great energy and mood. This is such a delight you have made! That's the impression and a great magnet. However, she does need jeans or a jeweled watch to really exploit the draw you have created for a potential client.

How did this evolve. Where has the MUA been hiding? Is she one you have been using with the other girls?

I'd like you to talk about the lighting. The hair is excellently drawn to the finest detail. This means a super fast flash duration and great separation from the background. could you share the technical details. From the catch-lights, it seems the the Elinchrom Octa is again at in front of her but how close? Jow many other lights and how did you illuminate the background since, although each one is beautiful, they are not consistent.

I see this is taken with the Leaf AF-II just recently, f 11.0 at 1/160 using the 180mm lens. Lucky you! This is mouth watering technology. I wish you'd take the same picture with the 1Ds III for us at the same session if you can redo the setup. That would be amazing.

Thanks so much for bringing to us your work with the Leaf system. You seem to have gottten mastery of it in no time at all. Ask them to look at the pages and see if we can continue this, side by side with out two Sinar shooters to show off the camera!

Asher

P.S. Please add you © and contact information to the IPTC! We want you to get a great client knocking on your door.

Asher, Flash duration has nothing to do with the detail in the hair. Duration really only effects stopping action/movement (ie water drops, breaking glass, sports action, etc.)

It appears that Frank used 4 lights. The big Octa center, Frank was in front of it and the light wrapped around him. (look at the catch lights in #1, and you can see him), a strip to the left side and back, on the right side a small softbox or deep octa high and pointing down, and one on the background.

Also #1 needs to be PS'd a little more, one item stands out and no editor would accept it as is.

Hi Frank,

Looking at these on my recently calibrated monitor, I think that the WB of the skin is not correct. It has more blue/magenta than it should have; too cool if you ask me. Especially the hands and the shoulders. Of course, my calibration can be totally off or this might be your deliberate intention. In that case, I stand corrected .

Bill Miller said:

Asher, Flash duration has nothing to do with the detail in the hair. Duration really only effects stopping action/movement (ie water drops, breaking glass, sports action, etc.)

It appears that Frank used 4 lights. The big Octa center, Frank was in front of it and the light wrapped around him. (look at the catch lights in #1, and you can see him), a strip to the left side and back, on the right side a small softbox or deep octa high and pointing down, and one on the background.

Also #1 needs to be PS'd a little more, one item stands out and no editor would accept it as is.

Click to expand...

Bill,

What PSing are you looking for? The backgrounds?

Re the hair, of course the stopping action of the flash is critical. I'm wondering at what minimum flash duration is one secure. Elinchrom has very fast flashes. Problem is that some other brands really stretch out the flash duration badly at higher power so that movement is seen and the hair is not well defined.

Also I'm interested in hearing how the light from behind (hair light or else from the backdrop might modify definition and brilliance of hair. Sometimes the hair lit from the front is well defined but there's no translucency. So I'd like to hear some thoughts on this.

Appreciate your comments,

Asher

Skintone is not 100% as it should be, I did add a blue filter to cool the skin a bit down, she is very lightskinned with slightly red hair.
But that blue should be VERY slightly, so well spotted.

@Bill,
Don't be sloppy and repeating what you heard before (pun intended)
You know I change my lights arround alot, having shot with strips on some shots lately does not mean I use them for everything
Always look at the edge transfers and EVERY lightsetup should reveal itself.

So the lightsetup is not what you say, what is it then?
When you look closely you would have seen that, striplights don't cover that much area in width and they fall off harder thus they would make the hairs stand out less and the edge transfer would be harscher. Or in other words the light would have been harder making the hair in this case not stand out positive but negative in being way to defined in one place and too dark in another, think about the old hairlights with a gridded spot, very localised light with hard edge transfers, when you shoot hair like this with many many small hairs it's not preferable to use a small edge transfer, we go for the larger lightsources this the nice edge transfers which make the hairs hold their soft and almost sugarspin (I hope that's the correct english word ?? the large things you get at the carnaval made of small pieces of sugar on a stick ?)

So to let the hair breath and stand out this time two large softboxes from both sides and the Elinchrom Octa 1.90mtr behind me (that is a dead give away when looking at the catchlights). The Deep octa has WAY more contrast and would result in a lightfall off arround the chin down and I would have probarbly blocked too much of it to be effective.

Back is lit with one gridded spot aimed from the ground upwarts.

Again, just analyze what you see and it should always reveal itself, however often it's in the details and the knowledge behind WHY to use something that is the problem for most.
And even then sometimes it's impossible to say what EXACTLY is used, but it should always be possible to recreate it when you know how light reacts and is modified.

Asher you are very close.

The translucency of the hair is the key for this kind of work, if you would use harder lightsources here the hair would become a real mess (even more then it's now), by using larger softboxes as kickers you get a shine through effect without placing a strobe behind the model which would interfere with the look and would give you lens flare.
The larger softboxes are placed at app 1 mtr by using this distance the lightfall off (inverse square law) was exactly what I needed to get just the simple accent on the arm but still light the hair from behind WITHOUT interfering with my main light.
The angle is of course also important, the hair is actually at a different location then the arm, you can play with this and achieve effects normally could only be done with two strobes, that's why I love to play with funny angles, you can really give moody effects and impossible looking lighting effects (unless you know the trick, then the fun is gone )

Would I have placed them further away they would have fallen off slower meaning they would also interfere with my main lights.
Put them closer and they would fall off too quickly and the translucency of the hair would be gone.

By the way don't think it's in the CM's, but you really have to take care with this if you want to do it good, placing them too far or too close can really screw up the shot.

PSing was probarbly one hair standing out, already corrected.

@Cem,
Skin tone in #1 changed back to balanced graycard.
Background is slightly different from number 2 because on 1 I used a Jinbei strobe and those vary on lightoutput too much, changed it for a dlite on the second one (drove me nuts).

Frank Doorhof said:

@Cem,
Skin tone in #1 changed back to balanced graycard.
Background is slightly different from number 2 because on 1 I used a Jinbei strobe and those vary on lightoutput too much, changed it for a dlite on the second one (drove me nuts).

Click to expand...

Frank,

Thanks for your generous sharing of your approach to the hair.

Could you introduce the "Jinbel" and the "dlte"; what when and why?

Asher

Jinbei is a cheap brand of strobes.
The D-lites are the cheap elinchroms.
The Jinbei's often change color during quick exposures, the Elinchroms don't.

Colorcorrected the images now by the way.

Frank Doorhof said:

@Cem,
Skin tone in #1 changed back to balanced graycard.

Click to expand...

FYI, the images don't show up anymore, links are broken?

Bart

Now these are really cool. The colour works so well and styling is to my taste as well. Well done.

Lighting Setup

Frank Doorhof said:

Skintone is not 100% as it should be, I did add a blue filter to cool the skin a bit down, she is very lightskinned with slightly red hair.
But that blue should be VERY slightly, so well spotted.

@Bill,
Don't be sloppy and repeating what you heard before (pun intended)
You know I change my lights arround alot, having shot with strips on some shots lately does not mean I use them for everything
Always look at the edge transfers and EVERY lightsetup should reveal itself.

Again, just analyze what you see and it should always reveal itself, however often it's in the details and the knowledge behind WHY to use something that is the problem for most.
And even then sometimes it's impossible to say what EXACTLY is used, but it should always be possible to recreate it when you know how light reacts and is modified.

Click to expand...

It does reveal itself. That is why I said a strip. This lighting setup can be done and easily recreated using a strip on the sides, with the front covers removed. Or it could be done with a standard reflectors w/Rosco "Tough Spun" for diffusion and flaging to control the light.

There are more then one-way to skin a cat.

There are, that's true.

But with one strip you have a too harsch light fall off, meaning you would loose the fine structure of the hair, you have to make that light source bigger.
If I would have used strips you would have seen that in the edge transfer.

In other words to recreate this look a strip won't do.
By removing the front you make the light even harsher, so I would not recommend that.
What you could do is place TWO strips next to each other making the lightsource bigger, that way the edge transfer gets softer and you get the same effect.

But not with one.

Same goes for the standard reflectors, the light quality is too harsch for this effect, even with tough spun you will not get enough diffusion, what you can do if you only have standard reflectors is use large translucent screens.

But again, the kickers have to be large for this effect, otherwise again the edge transfer will be too harsch.

video now on www.youtube.com/frankdoorhof

Is it just me or...? (it's usually me)

I like the tubes.

Excuse my ignorance, but why is there such variation between the white of her eyes and her teeth. Her teeth (on my screen) look yellowy, which would work if you added some of the red and green paint.

Teeth are already whitened alot, she has alot of yellow in her teeth, did not want to go further.
But I could, but they also have to be used for her portfolio.

Me too

I have a lot of yellow in my teeth too.
Good thing, I'm not a model.
What do think is the best way to whiten teeth?

Marcel Walker said:

I have a lot of yellow in my teeth too.
Good thing, I'm not a model.
What do think is the best way to whiten teeth?

Click to expand...

You mean in Photoshop, don't you?

Best is to select the teeth and use curves and saturation to whiten, and close it off with a bit colorbalance.

Hi ,
Very interesting to a layman. Would you have a shot without the paint tubes? Just the colors? That might be interesting as well. The tubes just irritate my glamorously untrained eye for some reason but I do like the paint colors, swirls, etc.

Why is my post, from the first page of this thread, repeated above under someone else's name?

James Newman said:

Why is my post, from the first page of this thread, repeated above under someone else's name?

Click to expand...

I'm checking that too! He commented on a picture that is not even showing up since July 2008!

One more post of his to check and then another one hits the dust!

Asher