Photography Thailand Forum

[Marc Schultz]

This is something I shot in my studio today. I needed a photo of traditional Thai massage for something and I chose to photograph this style of Thai massage known as Chaloeysak because I think it looks far more dramatic than the typical spa type massage photos we are so used to seeing. Comments are welcome.

[ThailandJohn]

Beautiful.
Great lighting.
So we can learn, a few questions.
Where were the lights placed and what kind of lights were used.
What are your camera settings and the distance from the subjects.
How much work was done in Photoshop.

I see many pictures I like in magazines, etc, but no way to find these answers.

This is one of the great things about this forum, getting answers

[Marc Schultz]

Thank you John.

The lighting consisted of a total of 3 studio strobes.

On the right (90 degrees from the camera) was one strobe fitted with a strip soft box, which is a long narrow soft box. Strip boxes are good when you don't need a wide disbursement of light because they are narrower than typical soft boxes. In addition, when you are using them in side or back light situations it is easier to scrim off a narrower soft box from shooting some light into your lens and causing some lens flare.

On the left was another strobe (also 90 degrees from the camera) fitted with a set of barn doors and 2 layers of tracing paper over the barn doors to diffuse the light and soften it. By placing lights on the sides like this usually results in some nice shadows in the center of the subjects, that is if you want something a bit moody for the lighting.

Once I had my lights setup, I did a couple of test shots and felt the shadowing was a bit heavy in some areas. I then added in a 3rd strobe with nothing covering the light head except a standard head reflector and I bounced it off the ceiling to add a bit of fill flash to the whole composition. I could of used an umbrella or another soft box pointed at the subjects from about 30-45 degrees off the camera, which would have done the trick too, but I did not want any more direct light falling on the subjects and possibly causing some hot spots on the faces, thus the bounce technique.

On the strobe used for the bounce I made sure to make it less powerful than the two side lights or it would have flattened the lighting of the image. So in order to keep the side lights looking stronger, giving the image some contrast, I used only a light bounce as I said.

My camera settings were ISO 50 @ F/14 with a shutter speed of 1/250th of a second. The fast shutter speed prevents any ambient lights you may have turned on in the studio from having any affect on the exposure. If you were working in a dark room then shutter spped is not so much of an issue, but obviously you need some ambient light in order to be able to focus the camera. So the fast shutter speed helps to prevent that ambient light from getting in and effecting the picture, as does the low ISO and small aperture settings. A lot of photographers shoot at a standard 1/60th of a second in the studio, which is still probably fast enough to block out any ambient light, but I prefer to shoot faster just to be sure.

Some cameras though can only sync with studio strobes at shutter speeds of 1/200th of a second or less. So one needs to know what their camera is capable of, otherwise, if you set the shutter speed faster than the camera is sync rated for, you end up with 1/3 or 1/2 the picture in total darkness as the shutter on the camera closes before the light is able to go into the camera for a proper exposure.

It is worth nothing that I really only intended to shoot at about F/11 (not wanting so much depth as F/14 gives), but when I first added in the fill light it was filling in one stop more than I really wanted. So to reduce the effect of the fill flash I closed down the aperture one stop to F/14. The reason I did not just turn down the power on the fill light is becuase it was already on the lowest power setting. So to reduce light I was forced to use the aperture instead.

At that point though, the lighting from the two side lights got darker as well, so I increased power on the two side strobe lights to compensate for the narrower aperture setting. The result is what you see.

The strobes I used were two 600W/S heads and the bounce was just a 400W/S head. None of them though were on full power. I was standing about 2.5 meters away from the subjects and hardly any Photoshop was done at all on the image. Just a very light touch up on the skin of the faces.

Hope this helps.

[ThailandJohn]

Marc,
Thanks for taking the time to answer in great depth.
Even though I am not a professional photographer and I have not done any studio shots or use any type studio lighting, your answer has made me more aware of how light works and how to change settings to achieve different affects.

Looking at the pictures on your websites has made me want to learn more and more.
The different types of pictures you take from studio pictures with people, food, etc, to the candid shots of people and scenes in their natural environment make you my benchmark for photography.

I am looking forward to your book in October. I am getting on the list today

[agitlits]

Marc - an excellently executed image. Thank you for giving technical insight. This is really helpful.

Alex

[SimonP]

My thanks also for posting an interesting pic with great explanation.  This is why the Forum is so useful.

Simon.

[Renato]

Awesome shot Marc, of course with your calibre we always expect a shot of this kind from a professional like you which we  enjoy looking and hope to learn from your technique and advise. I noticed however the line just below the elbow of the girl in blue, it is not her vein I guess. PS could have been used not unless you want it that way. Just my thought. Thanks for sharing.

[Marc Schultz]

Thank you Jingle for your good thoughts and kind words. The thing that actually bothered me about this image was the sharp line through the fabric in front of the girls from where it was folded and should have been ironed out before the shoot. Eventually I retouched it out.

As I have been requesting and encouraging that people post Avatars of themselves, I was wondering if you might add one for yourself as well?