Portrait of Miss Owen

Rigu

Rigu

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Name
Andrew
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Miss Owen by hideyourarms/bigguybigcity, on Flickr
I know the catchlights are very divisive (to put it mildly), and I'm on the fence myself as I feel they are distracting from the image, but I do love the even light that this rig (DIY'd from a strip of 300 LEDs) put out.
 
I can't stop looking at the catchlights... they make her eyes look un-natural. You're right, it's nice lighting, but I think the catchlights really let it down. I'm really sorry, I wish I had more positive things to say about it. Of course, this might be to someone else's taste.
 
First off, don't like the catchlights, way too distracting. I also think, a solid background, may have worked better.

Really nice portrait, the lighting is excellent, really suits the mood of this portrait :clap:

Being hyper critical, probably only me annoyed by this :rolleyes:, but I find her finger quite distracting. Think it would be better hidden by her hair.
 
Love this. Love the angle pose pov eyes are weird but hey ho it certainly is a stand out image :)

Gaz
 
IMHO the catchlights really detract from this shot.

I think the only way to make catchlights like this work, is to have them as the feature. Maybe a close cropped shot with some funky glasses framing the eyes.

Sorry

Shaheed
 
I'm with Shaheed - if the catchlights are the feature of the shot they could work as they are different, but if they are incidental to the shot then they distract a bit too much. But they certainly draw attention to the eyes so could work very well with the right approach. Worth using again, I'd say
 
There's an issue here, people seem to like the image but not the catchlights, but the image is only like that because of the lighting so it's a bit of a catch 22 situation.

I'd create a diffuser to go over the front but that would also create an odd catchlight since to use the lighting frame you shoot through it (you can see it here: https://instagram.com/p/yM94QGmyJh/?modal=true)

Suggestions?
 
johnnypanic said:
Could you not still have diffusion material down each side?
Click to expand...
I was thinking that might be the solution then it might just look like a couple of softboxes near the face, possibly less distracting.
 
Rigu said:
I was thinking that might be the solution then it might just look like a couple of softboxes near the face, possibly less distracting.
Click to expand...

Interesting - again!

Regardless of the catchlights, I'm not convinced the quality of light is quite there. The falloff from front to back is nice - owing to the relative size of the source to the model - but there's something odd going on. I can't quite put my finger on it but I suspect that it's generating a hint of horror lighting, i.e. uplighting - there are shadows above the chin, on the lower cheeks above the mouth and above the cheekbones. Perhaps having the frame higher and shooting a from lower point relative to it's centre would give better results?

PS A couple of softboxes near the face is sufficient to generate divisive catchlights, too.. depending on how you angle them. This shot produced a somewhat binary response:


Amber by Simon.Carter, on Flickr
 
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