A elegant portrait of a beautiful lady. What could be more fun – or more simple. This shot was a bit sophisticated in that I used both natural light and flash. The natural light came from camera left. There were big windows letting in the afternoon sun. We also had a nice reflection off the marble walls and floor.
Additional light came from two strobes. A softbox with a strobe was placed just out of the frame to the left front. This “fill light” provides some highlight and gives a nice glow to her skin. I will let you in to a little secret in analyzing portraits. Her eyes have a reflection of the softbox. This is known as “catch lights” and you can see both where the softbox was and its shape. The picture below shows the round softbox in her eyes. It also shows the flash was in front of her and just to her right side (the left side of the picture).
The second strobe was a small softbox with a speedlight. The speedlight had a purple / pink gel to give a nice contrasting color. The strobe was placed behind her and to the right side of the frame. You can clearly see the pink light in the elevator doors and on the wall behind her. You can also see a bit of pink on the edges of her hair. This light gives a nice color boost and also gives some definition to her hair. It provides some separation between her hair and the background.
Both lights were set to a fairly low power.
One final detail. I used a fairly deep f/6.5 aperture for this shot. I wanted to have the background in some focus because I liked the elevator doors. The 5.6 f-stop gives about 4ft in focus at the distance I was from her. I think that was just about right!
Canon 50mm f/1.2 L | Canon 5d mkIV | 1/200 sec at f/5.6
