Day 21. January 24th 2011

Today I tried my hand at a headshot. Possibly one of the most marketable skills in a photographers arsenal as many people require them. Everyone from models, TV presenters, corporate and business types and all the way to graduate photo's.

I was lucky enough to be working with a well established model today (not surprising really for those of you how know what my day-job is), Kate Banks. She recently appeared in the Sun's gripping photo casebook column Dear Deidre. So far in my little blog i've managed to snag two publish models.

Anyway's also taking photos at work provides another bonus which is having some TV studio lighting. Now with head-shots the trick is to have even soft light, which means soft-boxes to the left and right of the head and also above and slightly behind as a hair light. Use the correct angle which for girls is to shoot at a slight downward angle to soften features and enlarge the eyes, and for guys take a slightly upward angle to create a sense of power. Use a lens which has minimal distortion, basically anything above the normal 50mm. Finally and most importantly make sure the focus is on the eyes. All of these are not rules but mearly guidelines to achieve a textbook shot. Those of you with creative flair will understand that after you've studied and learned the textbook rules, the first thing you do is throw the darned thing out the window, otherwise everyones photo's will all look the same.

So here is todays photo.

I have to admit i'm rather proud of it. The only think that I dislike is the background. I don't like the uneven distribution of the folds in the curtain, am I just being picky?

The photoshop was simple, I did a bit of contrast tweaking and added a tiny amount of difusion to soften the image a touch, that's it. I did not airbrush the skin, it's just good lighting and make-up. I did not artificially brighten the eyes, I find it most unsettling to see an image where the eyes look too white!

I really should try to replicate this look with my little portable flashes and see how I go.

I tried a second shot afterwards but messed up a bit. I used my little flash, for some extra light, which has a different colour temperature to the lighting in the studio so we had a weird colour cast to the image. So like any pro would, I turned it black and white (using NIK's Silver Effects Pro photoshop plug-in) and pretended that was my intention all along!

There's another glaringly obvious error with the picture also... I'll leave you guys to work out what I did wrong. A pint or glass of wine* to the first person to guess correctly!

Till tomorrow guys,

Gordon

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Terms and conditions.

*house wine of white, red or pink variety or other suitably priced beverage.

*all travel expenses to be paid by the winner.

*the prize has no cash value.

*this agrement is not legally binding.

*a ducks quack DOES echo.