Signature portrait style and retouching

For the past 6 or 7 months I have been refining a signature look for head shots. At this point I think it has gelled and I have a signature style in place. This doesn’t mean I can’t or won’t shoot other head shot styles, but this just means my work can easily be identified with this style: spotlight behind the head, black background, a keylight, hairlight, reflector fill and a side light opposite the keylight.

Below I have a number of shots in this style. Also to give an idea of how much editing I do and the sort of editing I do on head shots I have included some of the images straight out of the camera, some have the fully toned images without skin toning and editing and a few are fully edited with skin toning.

You’ll be able to see how much work it takes to go from the raw image to a final image with blemishes removed, skin soften, and overall image toning applied. The post-production is just as important as the posing and lighting.

All these shots were done with 3, 4 or 5 lights and 1 reflector on black seamless paper.

All photos copyright Times Herald-Record

John: Fully toned with slight skin softening and slight blemish removal