Problem Solving: Full Length Portraits with Reflections on Location

Hey everyone! Happy almost end of mask mandates. Brief note on that...despite the coming changes to the rules it is my intention to continue to work to keep ourselves and clients as safe as possible, so we'll be happy to keep wearing masks as appropriate. Just so you know.

In this short post I will focus on how we solved the problem referenced in the title, followed by a brief example of a shoot requiring a natural light look from flash, introduction of a couple of new backgrounds, and a couple of really nice testimonials. 

Screen grab of a double page spread from a client's annual report

A few months ago I was engaged to shoot a series of full length portraits for an annual report. Subjects were based in the Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa. The look envisioned was very simple: close-cut on a flat light teal background with one important little detail that would ultimately dictate the way we shot…a shadow/reflection beneath the feet. However we achieved this we needed to be able to replicate the set-up multiple times not just at the client’s location in Toronto (where we’d be shooting in different rooms across several different dates) but in Ottawa and Vancouver. 

 

The layout received from the designer showing a rough example of the desired shadow/reflection

Given the shadow-free look we wanted to achieve, and knowing that the final background we’d be compositing in was a very light toned one it was a no-brainer to shoot on white to close-cut (ie. remove the background). As for the shadow/reflection I think at first glance we all thought the most sensible and efficient way to create that effect would be in post-production using Photoshop, until I did a test and realized this:

 

This isn't the test shot as I threw it out, so I've recreated the reflection problem on this final shot just to illustrate.

Note the way the “reflection” is not attached to both feet. I realized that the digital artistry required to create the desired effect from scratch would be really time consuming. I even called one of the top retouchers in Toronto (and probably Canada…message me if you want to know who he is) to ask for his thoughts and he basically agreed. Not a simple thing to do. It wouldn’t be a nightmare for him to do but it would cost a LOT of money and he was too busy to take the job anyway. I would need to actually shoot that shadow/reflection. 

 

The solution to this problem would be a portable, flat, but not easily breakable or scratchable reflective surface for the floor. Luckily the layout required only a short reflection, not the whole body, so a 3x4 foot piece of clear plexi on a white seamless paper backdrop did the trick. With a quick test shot and some Photoshopping to enhance and transfer the shadow/reflection to a transparent layer on the teal background I was able to create a replicable set of steps to recreate the final effect across sixteen final portraits.

 

This is one of the final shots: 

 

While the subject would be cut out and pasted onto the teal background (meaning there was no need to shoot the  background clean and fully white), the shadow/reflection had to be cut out separately and placed as a transparent layer onto the teal, to allow the teal to show through. Left: original shot. Right: final composite.

As for the photo sessions, while it made sense for me to drive to Ottawa, it did not make sense for me to fly to Vancouver, so I reached out to a trusted colleague there with a similar level of experience and managed his participation with notes, photos and detailed diagrams. This way he was able to set up and shoot both the full length portraits required as well as, additionally, a set of stylistically similar leadership team head and shoulders portraits to match the set I had created here in Toronto over the past few years. He shot the full length portraits on white the same way I did, but he shot the head and shoulders portraits against a green screen so I could add in the correct background. (When shooting the original set of headshots I shot against the gray background, but made a separate capture of the background alone for use in future portraits.) I had him send me his raw (unprocessed) files so I had full control over all steps of post-production ensuring seamless consistency.

 

Left: portait by Perry Danforth, Vancouver. Right: final file prep by Kathryn Hollinrake.

 

 

I mentioned the importance of planning in my previous post and this project is a perfect example of the importance of planning ahead and being prepared.

Creating a natural light look with flash

 

Repeating myself a bit, having just recently written about this issue, I wanted to share another example of a situation where we wanted a natural light look in a place where there was a lack of pleasing available light. There are many times when obviously unnatural light might detract from the apparent authenticity of an image. In these cases we need to create seemingly ‘real’ looking light by combining what’s naturally available with what we can bring to the scene with lighting.

 

For this project we were working to fairly precise layouts indicating the need for space for type and a logo on the left and above. The challenge was to find somewhere conducive, interesting, visually appealing and “fresh” to shoot in an environment where we’d shot frequently before and which was now “decorated” (I use this term completely facetiously) with newly installed Covid safety stations and partitions which we needed not to see in our images. We had three final images to create. I am sharing my favourite one here.

 

Left: my assistant standing in so we can see how the available light looks. Right: the final shot.

 

I don’t have a lot to say other than to comment that the available light was really not working for us. There was a lot of light coming from a skylight directly above the subject meaning that if we exposed correctly for him the background environment looked really dark and moody, not what we wanted. I also didn’t like the way the light falling straight down from the skylight created raccoon eyes (eye socket shadows) on the subject. So we needed to override that light with one strategically bounced light from the front and light up the room behind the subject with another one. Funnily enough I think the "before" shot looks almost more as if it could have been artificially lit than the final. (Again I refer the reader to my previous post where I touch on the idea that it can be hard to know if a shot was naturally or artificially lit.)

 

Regardless, this is, again, why we need to be prepared to light, always.  

 

Two New Locations

 

At a recent corporate shoot and during a location scout downtown I had the opportunity to capture two new environmental portrait backgrounds to use in in-studio portraits. One is a non-descript urban interior/exterior combo with hints of green, prefect for a busy, independent urban professional, and one is a spacious, interesting glass and polished floor office lobby interior, perfect, again, for an urban business professional. So much more interesting and suggestive of the real world than a plain studio background.

Yay Us! Testimonials 

 

Recently I was gratified to receive these two glowing testimonials:

 

"Thank YOU Kathryn! Our image is perfect, entirely due to your brilliance. You made us better and I cannot thank you enough. 😀"

 

And from a poetic author whose book jacket photo I shot recently…I can’t share the image yet but stay tuned for the book launch in the fall …”please know that you made a thing that could have been Wretched very deeply kind and good”.

 

Final thought

 

As always, I'm here to help you plan and problem solve your next photo shoot, whether it’s where to shoot, what your options are, what to wear, etc. I look forward to seeing old clients again as the world continues to open back up, and to meeting new ones! Let me know how I can help, or reach out and I'll let you know how I can help!

 

kathryn@hollinrake.com

hollinrake.com