Studio Portrait

While talking with Ellen about this assignment and getting to know her, she mentioned that she was generally a pretty calm and mellow person, but that she can also be crazy and loud. I decided to portray her in both of these ways using the different light set ups.

This portrait of Ellen was meant to portray her as crazy and fun.
I chose to make the background lighting crazy tie-dye colored to get the mood I was looking for. I positioned two lights on the background, each with two different colored gels in them, so I had a total of four different colors on the background. I really like how my background turned out. I also lit Ellen with a soft box directly in front of her.

This portrait was meant to show the more pensive and artsy side of Ellen. She's shown here with her sketch book and I liked the idea of her working. When shown the use of side lighting examples in class I was really drawn to this type of light so I was hoping I'd get a chance to do it for this assignment. I lit Ellen with a spotlight from the side and put a grid on it to keep the background dark. I also used a reflector to eliminate some of the shadows on her face, but it didn't work quite as well as I was hoping.

                          And this is my lame attempt of sketching a lighting diagram. I was never very good at drawing...

Portrait Research

I feel like this portrait of Humphrey Bogart by George Hurrell is overall a fantastic photograph with great use of lighting. It appears to me that the key light for the photograph was a top light with the help of a fill light coming from the side to help show his eyes. I also think there is a semi back light because of the separation of his hat from the background. I feel like the lighting in this photograph really adds to the mood and demonstrates Bogart's character. The sly smile on his face also adds to the photograph making him look very smooth. Though a simple portrait, I feel it is effective and an excellent example of good portrait lighting.