This is my 6 month old nephew Jacob. His mom wanted a single portrait of him for turning 6 months old.
In under 5 minutes everything was setup and we had the shot. This is how it happened:
First I decided on a white background. I would need to light the background to make it glowing white, dingy white doesn’t work.
I moved a small table in the middle of the room in front of the couch. I put down a pillow on the floor that I would use to prop him up. Then covered it with a white blanket. Got my white fabric backdrop and threw it on the couch and under the pillow on the floor. (link: see the photo to get and idea of what it looked like before I lit it)
I setup one strobe (sb25 at full power bare, zoomed ) off to the side aimed at the background to light it up. I put a reflector in between it and where Jacob would be sitting. The reason is to keep the light from that flash off Jacob as it would ruin the photo.
Then I setup one light stand with a bounce umbrella. The strobe here was set at 1/4 power 24mm (sb25). I set this up about 3 feet up angled down. I used the light bouncing off the background as some soft rim light on the opposite side from the umbrella.
At this point it is 3.5 minutes into this. I set the camera at ISO 200, f11, 1/200 shutter speed. I take 1 shot without the strobes to make sure no ambient light is going to show up on the photo…completely black. Good.
Now I turn on the strobes. Another test. Front light only. Too dark. Reset camera: ISO 320, f8, 1/200 shutter speed.
Test again. Perfect. Third test: back light. Looks great. Now we are ready for Jacob.
4 minutes in.
3 quick shots…he’s not looking at me or smiling. We get mom behind me. 2 more shots and we have it!
5 minutes total.
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