First when you start to plan a portrait or closeup shooting you need to have an idea of the look you like to create.. Important is the look of the model and the next step is, what kind of background you like to fit her in..
At the beginning of a portrait shooting I always prefer a nude makeup.. That means a makeup that looks very natural.. (it is a hard work for a makeup artist to do it)
And of course, the first set is always a first meeting with the model, so don’t try to do nude scenes at first, try something funny to have a good warmup.. At the first set of the shooting you will know if you are compatible with the model.. So this is the most important sequence.
For the background I choose a flower look.. It is not a paper it is a textile.. I bring it up on one of my up shatters.
My second up shutter is in use with the white side.. so it looks like this from the front view
now I set up the light. I choose my main light the beauty dish (I work with Hensel and the beautydish is one of the best in the world)
The position is like the sun and comes up from the left side..
On the right side I use a flat umbrella reflector. This one is important do reduce shadows. I don’t use a reflector to do this.. A light is better to control.
No more light is in use for this portrait work.. You don’t need a back-light, because of the white background.. Enough light will be reflect.
Now place the model in your set.. and do a first test.. Think about the skin color.. You only will get the natural skin color if there is enough light coming thru the lens.. Remember, flashes are calibrated at 5600 Kelvin and this will give you the most natural look of the skin
I choose a wide open lens with f4 and shoot with 1/160s on 100ISO
The result out of the cam looks like this
Thats it..
My retouching work let the pictures look like that (see first tutorial)
and than start to get wild and make her look like this.. At this point you will have a good shooting running.. because the model is on your side!!
Hope you enjoy my little inside look
The sweet model: Janina Staub
Makeup Artis: Iryna Müller http://www.iryna-mueller.com/
