But when I tried to find that post tonight, I couldn't, which was very sad. I didn't remember quite how the whole thing was set up, so I just had to move on to something else.
Another thing I've wanted to try that David Hobby has done is using feathered light from an umbrella or other large light source directly above the subject. It can have some really awesome, beautiful lighting effect. The shadows are very soft and subtle, with right tones in a full range of contrast. It's very symmetrical lighting, which is usually unnatural and provides an ethereal feel.
But I didn't like the results I was getting with that, so I scrapped it.
Then I started playing with the ring flash a little bit and though, "why not do something with the ring light reflection that happens in eyes?"
There's a lot you could do with that, but I immediately jumped to doing a macro shot of the eye. I've done my fair share of them in the past, but I don't think I've ever done one with a ring light as the main light source.
With the 10x macro adapter on there, I was set to go. My aperture was stopped down to f/16 to get the max depth of field, but not too stopped down that I'd drain my strobes batter and/or get refraction from the aperture blades which would soften the image. What's really cool about shooting with a crop sensor is that you get more depth of field than with a full frame. I want to say it's one stop, but I could be wrong about that, so I'll get back to you....
Focusing is always the challenge with the macro adapter. It's not the sharpest tool in the backpack, so you have to be in the center of the frame with enough light for the camera to focus. I did this by bouncing my Maglite off the ring flash and illuminating my face for the camera. Then it was just a matter of moving fractions of an inch until the camera locked focus.
Now for the fun of post processing. I did pretty much everything with elliptical adjustment masks. Around the out of the eye, I darkened things, upped the contrast, and softened it. I wanted to draw the attention to the eye, not the boring skin around it. By darkening it and softening it, you provide hints to the view to look away for something brighter and sharper.
Which was the eye. To it, I applied brightening, lots of clarity, lots of contrast, and a fair amount of sharpening. This really, really makes the eye pop out at you. Totally unrealistic, but oh so lovely.
Sometimes, it's nice to just have a simple, realistic, powerful photo. A lot of very good photographers take images for their content, not the aesthetic qualities. Yes, the photos look lovely, and are technically very correct, but they're not about the technical side of things. That's great, but there needs to be times when you just go crazy with a photo. Photography doesn't just have to be about powerful images with deep meaning about society and the world. Sometimes, a photo can just be crazy for the sake of being crazy.
That being said, I do not condone the HDR craze of land scape that's going around. If it's done well to bring detail back or make it a little bit more romanticized (like many paintings did in I think the Hudson period? or something like that? I could be horribly wrong with that name), but just pushing the HDR slider is rather shock and awe sometimes. And not in a good way.
But then again, I was doing that 6 months ago, so maybe it's jus the beauty in the eye of the beholder.
See you tomorrow!
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