Phillip

Phillip gave us a hard time for shooting too many female models and not having enough "gritty realism". Eric turned the tables and had Phillip model for us the following weekend, complete with a week-long mustache. Dave Reeves graciously loaned us his father's early 1940's era car, which proved to be quite a diversion from our usual location.

Using our speedlights in a small, highly reflector interior proved to be a time-consuming mental ray tracing exercise. In retrospect it would have been best to have worked our lighting from the bottom up (Ambient > Fill > Key > Accent - more on this in an upcoming post). After a few umbrellas and moving Phillip one seat back we found the shots we were looking for.

I ended up liking the pose, but the background didn't quite fit. There's just something a little creepy about it. ;)

We ended up going for a blue gel in the end, which suits the pose and expression better.

The composite was straightforward.The Pen Tool was used to extract Phillip from the background. Select > Color Range was used to select the orange rim light on the shoulder and hat.

Retouching & post-production links

FstoppersPPT YouTube channel by Sean Armenta

• Pen Tool - highly recommended if you haven't used the pen tool before
• Brush & Patch Tool
• Clone Stamp

Retouching tutorials - by Christy Schuler

• Skin
• Symmetry
• Eyes
• Hair
• Contouring

Lighting Info

Umbrella camera left and right. Double blue gel on a speedlight on the "backdrop". Water and oil to create the "raindrops" on the back of the car. Glycerin and water should work better, but oil was readily on hand. Adding rubber cement to the mix makes the droplets permanent. Not quite something you would want to do for a car, but a useful trick to keep around.