This is Elisabet Thorlacius again who modeled for me in the last Free Study and in 7 Deadly Sins. My wife Henny took care of the makeup and held the smoke making machine just outside the frame (it´s actually in the frame before I cropped it slightly) Borrowed a smoke machine from Steinar to create the smoke, the same machine he used to take his ribbon winning shot Learn to be nice, not nasty.
I think that is the first and last time I ever use a smoke machine! First off I set of the fire alarm, I didn´t realize smoke would do that and forgot to tape over the smoke detector :) Secondly, both me and Henny had dry lips, sore throats and a whiskey voice about 2 days after this photoshoot and probably Elíasbet too. Thirdly the loss of contrast was very dramatic and this got hard to light properly, the light falloff from the smoke was very dramatic and this was flat as a margarita pizza before I increased the contrast afterwards so it definately had an effect on the quality of this photo. Was fun though but not going to happen again anytime soon :)
Lit with 3 lights, one from behind for hairlight and the smoke, a softbox from the front and a 75° reflector from the left to just take the edge of the shadows and give her some catchlights.
As for post processing, dramatically increased the contrast, curves adjustment, lightened the area around her with both selective curves adjustment and dodge, did a little dodge burning. Used liquify to a very small extent, added a little vignetting and finally sharpened after resizing.
Statistics
Place: 24 out of 158 Avg (all users): 6.4076 Avg (commenters): 7.6842 Avg (participants): 6.1774 Avg (non-participants): 6.5246 Views since voting: 7875 Views during voting: 912 Votes: 184 Comments: 23 Favorites: 6 (view)
Super shot and the lighting is great, oh, and the model is definetly hot! I'm thinking this was a photo shoot that fitted the challenge rather than taken just for the challenge? (bumping +1)
I really like the lighting effect you've achieved with this shot. I would of maybe tried to put the smoke machine a little lower to have more smoke around her. Well done!
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
