Photo Deconstruction: Using a V-Flat to create Graphic Shadows
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 เม.ย. 2020
- Today I want to share how I use a V-flat as a gobo to create interesting and graphic shadows on the background.
If you know my work you know that I love graphic elements -- graphic makeup, graphic clothing, graphic backgrounds, clean bold and graphic is part of my style. Since there are many different ways to achieve this, I want to show you how you can use lighting to make an interesting and graphic element to your background.
The background in the image shown in the video is white on one side and black on the other. Perhaps this could be achieved in Photoshop but I want to show you how you can achieve it mostly just through lighting and then you can make some tweaks in your post-processing.
Lighting:
The main light on our subject is an extra large white umbrella with diffusion which fundamentally is a large soft light source which is going to give even illumination across my subject, but that's not going to affect the background.
The actual background I've chosen here is Savage Universal Fashion Grey background. It's not very light or very dark, which means I can actually push and pull the tones. I can make it white by lighting it or I can make it black by pulling the light away. This is where the creativity in the shot comes into action.
My second light is hidden behind the V-flat, to the far left. I'm using barn doors with a hard light source, and how I create that sharp line of light on the background is by using that V-flat as a Gobo. Gobo stands for “go between”. By closing part of that V-flat, it’s casting a shadow onto the background.
Camera Settings:
I was using a Canon 24-105mm on a Canon 5D Mark IV. The reason I was using this lens is because I achieved some shots that were wider, full length shots, and others I cropped in for beauty shots. With this lens, I can change my focal length really easily in order to achieve many crops without wasting a lot of time changing my gear.
I use barn doors because I was trying to cast the shadow using the leaves of the barn doors but unfortunately it wasn't crisp enough so I had to bring in the V-flat. The closer it is back to the light the more diffused that shadow would be.
Post Processing:
I was shooting tethered and the image wasn’t black and white to begin with, since this image is all about shape, it's all about graphic elements, I felt color wasn’t adding anything to the image. As I was shooting tethered, I used a pretty strong black and white contrast effect.
Analyzing this image, I'd be fine with it as is, but there's a few distractions I wanted to clean up. There's a few veins in the forehead and maybe a couple of wrinkles in the neck that could be removed, using Photoshop.
Before retouching, I pulled back on a bit of the contrast so that I wouldn’t get blown out skin and lose textures, however after I was done cleaning things up, I realized that adding that contrast back in helped the image pop a bit more.
You could achieve this in post, you could go ahead and cut out the subject and do the black and white effect but it was actually quite easy to do it with my lighting.
When you are thinking about how you can work with graphic shapes, you can do so with your clothing, with your makeup etc like you see here, but you can also do so with your set design and your background.
👇💬 So have you tried this technique before? Using gobos and other hard light modifiers to create graphic elements? If so, drop a comment and let me know!
📸 Gear:
✅ Canon 5D iv: adorama.rfvk.net/3aJnn
✅ Canon 24-105mm 4.0: adorama.rfvk.net/KG0ne
✅ Profoto D2: adorama.rfvk.net/qvB7y
✅ Profoto Barn Doors: adorama.rfvk.net/yv1EG
✅ Profoto XL White Umbrella Deep + Diffusion: adorama.rfvk.net/bKGzg
✅ V-Flat: adorama.rfvk.net/djdBq
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👉 Check out this tutorial on using a v-flats to create 3 different beauty images: • How to Create 3 Differ...
👉 Also check out this blog post that uses graphic elements to create bold imagery! learn.lindsayadlerphotography...
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🔥 Want to learn these types of techniques and more? Check out my class Master Studio Lighting: lindsayadler.photo/masterstud....
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Portfolio: lindsayadlerphotography.com
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Facebook: / lindsayadlerphotography
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And I love, love, love the way you explain your thought process to the final image. That to me is more important than the technique.
I absolutely love it. B&W has always been my favorite. Thanks so much for sharing that. Keep up the fantastic videos!!!
I love this kind of videos. they are very helpful lindsay. Thank you
Another great video Lindsay love your work, keep these video's coming.
Love creative look and your classes. Awesome!!
Fantastic!
Interesting as always...
love it!
Your the best!.
thank-you always for sharing your insights into your creative vision!!!
Thank you so much for watching!
Excellent Thank you
Loved it and great job of breaking down your steps and thought process.
Thank you!
👏👏👏♥️
👏👏👏👏👏😍
The following is a comment to a friend when sending a link to your 'deconstruct' series, which I love.
"BTW: I have been known to correct her on occasion. She has never thrown a hissy fit like others. Usually with me and anyone else correcting her, or coming up with a better way to do things it's ""Thanks, that is good to know.""
That is why I very strongly recommend her to everyone."
lol. It may also be that there are multiple ways to think about things, but also I don't think I know everything. Who does? I just share as much as I can, no one can be right 100% of the time.
@@lindsayadlerphoto But some think they are right all the time.
Your reply is precisely why I recommend following you to anybody who will listen.
obrigado gata
When you said you used a V-flat I thought about other solution: an edge of white V-flat wall lit by backgound light and on the right side just a dark backgound in the back. The edge would be more sharp, how do you think?
Could be. Worth a try!
It’s an interesting question, the edge itself might be sharper, but then could still be a slight gradient across the entire dark side. Interesting question.
Emily Cross that depends on the distance between white and black backgrounds and direction of light hitting white wall
But if you use the V-flats, would you still need the barn doors?
I'm pretty sure I mentioned that, but maybe not. No they would not be necessary. I started with them, but didn't do quite what I wanted so I grabbed v flats instead. not required.
@@lindsayadlerphoto Great! Thank you. You did mention that you didn't get the look you wanted, and then went to v-flats, but you didn't say that you took them off, or didn't need them, so I just wanted to clarify. Thank so much! Love your generous tutorials!