My brother in law Babu is awesome, so I thought it was only
fitting to make him a badass headshot when he was in town this summer. A Badass
Portrait (or Badass Headshot) is something new that I’ve been introducing to
Billings Montana. One of Montana’s slogans is that “Montana is for Badasses,”
so the badass portrait is one that made with an equal amount of badass as
Montana itself. Really, it’s an editorial portrait that can take on many forms,
whatever may be influencing me at the moment, or an idea that I come up with in
response to a specific subject matter. This particular look for a headshot is
inspired by Marco Grob, a renowned photographer who shoots a lot of magazine
covers. So just think of your badass portrait as your very own cover photo.
Book at www.portraits.paulbellinger.com
Tips for photographers: This is one of my favorite lighting
techniques that I learned from studying the work of Marco Grob. I’ve written
about the basics of the technique in the past here. The most important thing about this lighting
technique is using a flag (black foam core in this case) to create a shadow on
the same side of the face that the key light is coming from (camera right in this case). You can make the
shadow hard or soft according to your taste, and you can make the shadow broad
or narrow, but try to at least reduce the exposure on the ear. The key light in
this case is a strip box very close to Babu, just out of the frame on the
right. Two beauty dishes are behind Babu on 45 degree angles to create the
kicker lighting. Other than that the set is closed off very tightly with black
foam core to absorb any stray light and keep the shadows dark with very little
light filling in the shadows.
I like shadowy portraits and I usually like short side
Rembrandt lighting for that reason. And that’s fine, the flag doesn’t change
much for short light Rembrandt lighting. But when the subject turns and broad
lights themselves, the flag reigns them in by putting a shadow on the broad lit
side of the face and obscuring the ear which could otherwise get brighter than
the face depending on the lighting setup. Don't understand the difference between short light and broad light? Read about broad lighting here and short lighting here. This headshot of Babu is an example of broad lighting with the key light.
This was one of my favorite sessions because Babu is a great
guy and part of my family, but he said something during the shoot that really
stuck with me. Using flags on light stands makes a cluttered set and you have
to constantly adjust them and the position of the subject to put the shadow
right where you want it. It makes for a longer shoot than I’d normally prefer
and would recommend using an assistant for that reason. But Babu said during the
shoot that he thought it was really nice that I was fussing so much over the
lighting and that “people must feel very important when they are photographed
by you.” That was a great complement even from an obviously biased family
member.
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