Appears to be the sun behind the subject and a light, as you suggested, to camera right. They added a vignette in Lightroom or PS after the fact. Very simple, really.
Deezie's totally right. I'd also suggest that the strobe is fired into either a medium-sized beauty dish or a silver-interior softbox. There's no general underexposure, as her skin looks about right, just underexposing ambient and then desaturating the color channels that correspond to the ambient light.
It's really easy to do and one of my favorite tricks. People always think you worked much harder on it than you actually did.
After pushing things toward the general color palette that I wanted, I pulled back out the colors that might have made the image look more naturalistic...mostly greens and blues. It makes the image more stark and "hard", which is what I wanted. Setup shot:
Lighting was just a single head on a Profoto AcuteB 600 and fired into a 42" Photek Softlighter with the front diffuser on. This was shot in the midafternoon under unshaded Texas sky.
Being a simpleton here... What is the general concensus to achieve these results?
Going by the Sunny 16 rule, let's assume the proper exposure is f/16 @ 1/125 ISO 100. Would you set the camera to f/22 @ 1/125 ISO 100 to underexpose the sky/background, then set your strobe and meter to f/22? I guess you could also meter to f/16 and make the model "pop" from the background a bit more.
Or
Shoot at f/16 @ 1/125 ISO100, set the strobe for the same results, then mask the model in Photoshop and adjust the background to taste.
Tony, that's essentially what I do. In practice, I'll meter the ambient for, say, f/16 and 1/60th @ ISO 100. I'll set my strobe for the same. Then I'll adjust the shutter from shot to shot or angle to angle to allow more or less ambient light in. I want to get coverage with a more natural look? Easy, 1/60th. I want my subject to pop from the ambient a little more? No problem, 1/90th or 1/125th. I want a dark, apocalyptic sky? Sure thing, 1/250th. If I wanted to shoot "day-for-night" I'd up the strobe output and look to underexpose ambient by as much as 4 stops, otherwise I tend to be looking for about 2 stops underexposure to get the look above or 1 stop just to make things pop a little bit.
butchM wrote:
Simon ... nice sand bag ... how much did that set you back?
Having your stand blow over and bend the umbrella ribs: $42
Having the stand supporting your Profoto pack blow into the pond: $2,000
Arriving at an unscouted shoot location and finding a bag of soil to use for security: Priceless!
I travel fairly light when flying for shoots, especially when I'm just picking up model tests on the back of client work, so stuff like sandbags and extra grip are luxuries I'll do without.
shatterkiss wrote:
Having your stand blow over and bend the umbrella ribs: $42
Having the stand supporting your Profoto pack blow into the pond: $2,000
Arriving at an unscouted shoot location and finding a bag of soil to use for security: Priceless!
I travel fairly light when flying for shoots, especially when I'm just picking up model tests on the back of client work, so stuff like sandbags and extra grip are luxuries I'll do without.
Know what you mean Simon. Even though I am not a jet setter like you, traveling light has it's benefits. Doing so can also offer some opportunities for use of non-traditional items ... very resourceful.
