Two Face

This post is about color and how it can affect a photo.

So we all know that films that have dark subject matter tend to have cool, subdued, dark colors. Many of you probably realize that this color pallet sets the mood for the film and influences how you feel. As an audience, cool colors and supposed to make us feel sad or desperate or depressed, while warm, vivid colors are associated with happiness, love, or positivity.

This relationship with color is exactly the same with photography. Photographers choose color pallets that suit the tone or expression of the photo they envision.

Tonight I didn't have much time to shoot, so I did a quick set up similar to some old portrait stuff I've done, and turned it into a example of how color tells stories. As you look at the first photo, you can clearly see the expression is constant across the face. Pay attention to the next two photos and see how that changed supply.

It's a small difference, but upon first glance, the "face" on the right appears to be more sinister, more angry, and have more emotion in general. But it's not. It's the same expression across the whole face.

This change in perception is due mainly to the color pallet, and how light falls on my face. The light source on the left is a large, white umbrella. On the other side, it's a comparatively small soft box that has been gelled blue. One cool effect tho has is that there are now two sets on highlights on the right side of the face. One from the umbrella, and one from the soft box. They blend together and make a very unique feel. It's also a harder light on the right side, with more pronounced shadows and highlights due to the smaller light source.

So think about that, and the implications it has on cinema and photography. Supple changes, even different lighting on different characters or part of a scene can have  a profound influence.

Techy part...

You know what the set up was. Umbrella on the left has a 560 at 1/32 power. It's at about 45 degrees in front of me and about 35 degrees up. The soft box is on axis with me horizontally and about 40 degrees down. It's pointed 40 degree to the back of me at the wall behind. it's set to 1/128 power.

I was shooting with a 50mm at 1/250, f2, at ISO100. I just light the shallow depth of field for this. The eye is still sharp but the shirt and background are wayyyy blurry.

On to work in Ps and Lr. This was a quick and dirt edit. In Lr I enhanced the eyes (clarity, saturation, brightness all up), bumped the clarity and shadows up a bit as well as the highlights. I exported to Ps and proceeded to do a quick dodge and burn session. I burned the shadows a bit (darkened them) and dodged the highlights (lightened them). This creates a hard light effect or more dramatic lighting. I did this to the face, eyes, and a bit to the shirt.

Next step. Duplicate layers and merge. Duplicate that layer. Set to color dodge. Mask around the face but leave the hard light effects is makes on the shirt, hair and background. Then duplicate the base layer again and set to overlay. Mask the face again to create a vignette around everything. I could have spent more time but technically it's tomorrow already so I've gotta post this.

Anywho, that's it for now. Comment if you have question about any step I took along the way to this photo. See you tomorrow...errr today.