I had a great time hanging out with the people from the Northern KY Wedding and Portrait Photographers meet-up group on Sunday.  The organizers setup a very cool meet-up where 7 photographers setup “advanced lighting” shots and then demoed them to a group of about 35 area photographers.

First, I’d like to thank Jason and Shad of Red Door Photographic for hosting the meet-up.  I’d also like to thank Tammy and Tom Bryan for organizing on yet another wonderful meet-up.   Next, thanks to everyone else who put on a setup.  I fully intend to steal at least one idea from each of you!

I demo’d a setup for making a mimic of cosmetics cover or “beauty ad” image of Tara in the lobby with the soft box, beauty dish, and fill reflectors.  I really wish I’d have taken a setup shot but this picture lays it out. The picture below is my “build up” of the components of the photo one at a time.  I wanted to show folks the components of the shot and how lighting one light at a time changes the image.

1.  On the left is the image with just the background light is on – you can see the light wrap around her jaw.  The jaw is the point we were metering.

2.  The center image adds the beauty dish which was metered pretty much on here nose.  Notice the shadow under her chin – we’ve gotta get rid of that.

3.  On the right is “final” image – well it’s at least the source of the final image.  It adds three white foam boards to act as reflectors.  One under her chin held by Tara and one on each side held by an assistant.  This picture has about the light I want – I actually has a little to much wash but it’s good enough because I shot in RAW and when you look at the histogram in Lightroom nothing on her face is blown out and the image is actually just right of center where most of the data is found.

Below is the final “Cosmetics Beauty ad” image.  My post process is to get the exposure and color balance right in lightroom.  Then off to PSe and work any blemishes and clean up things I don’t like – some fly away hairs, reflections of the fill reflectors in her eyes, and lighting a few dark areas – under her eyes for example.

Then back to Lightroom to do a final cleanup – skin smoothing, clarity, and final checks for color balance, tone, and exposure.

One more time back to PSe and overlay the ad words giving the full effect.

My apologies to the folks at the makeup company, just remember imitation is the highest form of flattery!