Hyper-Sharp, High Contrast Portrait

Whilst constructing a workshop for my Yr2 students, I'd thought I would try out a lighting setup that I saw on a great blog run up by Ted Sabarese (which I wholly recommend). The aim of which is to create images that have depth and punch without losing detail.

Again - please forgive the subject matter, but I think for portraits and to a certain extent fashion, this setup works really well. With only minor tweaking in Photoshop you get a rich, contrasty, hyper-sharp image with minimal bleed in the highlights.

To achieve this I used two heads with umbrellas hooked up to a B2 pack - power evenly spread - for a bright white background, metering at an even f11 all over. To prevent bleed I had two black 7'x3' polyboards either side of the subject, which also enhanced the nice dark outline.

To get a really sharp image, the main light was a zoom dish head with a 20º Honeycomb attachment. This was position about 4 feet from the subject, a foot above head hight and metered in at f8 upon the face. Then as a fill, I used a Pro Ring metering in at F4.5 (I had the above two lights hooked up to one B2 pack with a 1/2 - 1/4 spread of power)

I hope that all made sense!

Cheers for stopping by =D