October, 2022
The Concept
Back in September and October Matt & I had loosely been in contact for a shoot for several weeks at this point for a shoot. I had been wanting to experiment with something more towards the looks of Gregory Crewdson’s cinematic aesthetic mixed with Kate Woodman’s Color style.
Then Matt reached out to me with a concept for his upcoming single, now released. The idea was something colorful & and nostalgic, to match the style of the music video that he was shooting. We began to compile a moodboard on pinterest. Once we settled on a concept, I was able to start figuring out the gear I’d need to execute what we had in mind. The idea was to have a lot of color, but have the image also be darker and moody, with hard shadows and even lighting.
The Space:
The space was a room in a garage on the property that the music video was being shot on. I wont say the space was ideal, but the single aspect that made this shoot possible was the fact That the room we were shooting in, had a high ceiling. This allowed me to have the room to place the lights where they needed to be and for the light to dissipate so I could retain control over the lighting and get the look we were going for. If the ceiling were lower, the whole room would have effectively become a giant reflector. The light would have no room to dissipate, and would reflect all the walls everywhere, making it a lot more difficult to control it and get the look that I was going for. The reason specifically for this is because the look that I needed was, even lighting with hard shadows. To allow those hard shadows, the additional light that is not falling all the subject needs to have that space to dissipate. Otherwise the light would bounce off of the walls, and fill in the shadows, therefore making the shadows softer. Destroying the look I was aiming to achieve. If you are shooting in a smaller space and this is a look you are wanting to get, you can use Black Blankets to help absord the light. The best material would be black Velvet, but that is expensive and a pain to hang on the walls.
Equipment
Because the shoot would be on location, and not in a studio, I opted to bring my own lights. I had 2 Goodox ad400 Pro’s and a Orlit RT500. They’re both Battery Powered and a lot easier to use outside of a studio setting.
I knew there would be heavier Retouching work done on these images, so between my sony A7III and my Hasselblad x1d, I chose my Hasselblad. I choose my hassy because its larger sensor and denser files are much better for heavier retouching work. I didnt know how big the room was going to be that I was shooting in, so I brought my 80mm HCD F/2.8 Lens for an ideal scenario, and my 50mm HCD F/4 lens in anticipation of a smaller/tighter space. Thankfully I was able to shoot with my 80mm.
The Shoot
So, There would be two colors, Blue & Red. This would obviously also call for two lights with a blue and red Gel. We would want a colored background as well, not a black backdrop. So we’d probably need a 3rd light to light that as well. However, one of my concerns was having control over the saturation of the color gels. I wanted to have slightly less saturation with the in camera captures, so that it would be easier to control the skin tones and color saturation in post. This way we would be able to have options for different edits in post production, this did later prove to be useful so I was thankful that I thought of this ahead. Anyway, to ensure that I could have less saturation for options later, I knew I’d have to shoot one light without a gel on it (Barebulbed). The white light would drown out a portion of the colored light, therefore turning the dark blue light to a lighter more manageable blue.
However This left me with no light to light the background, so I knew at that point that I’d have to composite the background to make it appear as if there was a light there.
This later proved to be better anyway, I had more control over the edit this way, and Matt decided on an image that had a plain background anyway (No light). However, to I really liked this look at decided to put this one in my portfolio anyway.
So In total, there was 3 lights with this set up. Two of them barebulbed, one of them with the blue Gel on it.The 3rd one with a Westcott Projector attachment on it with a canon 85mm Lens and the Red Gel. The Blue and White light were at equal power, meanwhile the Red Gel was my Keylight. I did have a reflector just below the camera's angle of view, to hopefully get more fill light for Matt's face.
After getting the right angle in camera, and fine tuning some of the lighting, it was perfect. I was happy that I had mostly been accurate in my assessment for what I had needed to execute this shoot.
The Edit
This was my favorite part. To Start this edit, I first used channel masks to use the contrast of the blue channel to make a mask of matt. I wanted to separate him from the background so that I could composite the background like I had mentioned before. This method was ideal for masking out his hair. If I had another light, or a wider back drop paper this would not had been needed for the look I was going for.Anyway, I then proceeded to use a curves adjustment to create a gradient behind him, giving the illusion of a 4th light behind him. For better effect, I used a white brush on another layer and painted the white onto the edges of his fly away hair. This gave a better illusion that the light behind him was also reflected from the background onto the back of his head. I did this intentionally because I felt it separated him from the background more and brought him to the attention of the view that much more. Next, I began working with the Red light on his face. My intention was to shift the color to a different hue of Red, but I ended up abandoning that idea. I then started to contour the edit with some dodge and burning, I really like this part of the process. I created 4 layers at various brightness and darkness, put a black mask on them and then set my brush to White, at 5% Flow. I use a Wacom Tablet with pressure sensitivity, so this part of the process really was light drawing in a sketchbook. Improvising takes over, and you actually begin to paint on the image and make your impression as an artist. My intention with this was to add more shape to Matt's face, and additional contrast on his jacket. I also gave some fill light to his eyes, and It really brought back a lot of nice detail that you couldn't see before.
Finally, given the concept we were working with and the intended nostalgia behind the work, I turned the background color into a smart object, and put some noise on it to simulate grain. When I was in photoshop at this stage of the edit I thought a good idea to contrast this was to add a sharpening effect to matt. My intention was to further separate Matt from the background and put him front and center in the viewer's eye. A grainy background, reminiscent of film, mixed with the refined sharpened quality you only see in conjunction with today's technology.
Conclusion
This shoot was just the challenge I needed at the time. I had been wanting to experiment with something that looked similar to Gregory Crewdon’s Cinematic settings, mixed with Kate Woodman’s approach to color science. I think this was the perfect starting point for just that. However, Now that I dipped my toes I’m looking forward to diving deeper into experimenting more!