Thanks all for the fantanstic comments, and the voting and the views.
For those interested, here's how I did it:
The effect primarly came from the use of white face makeup and lots of light. While setting up for my Free Study shot , I came up with the idea for this shot.
- I applied a thick coat of white face paint to half of my face, keeping th dividing line fairly uneven (light the progression of a sketch).
- I used a lot of lighting:
> one medium size soft-box in front of, and a little above, the subject (me).
> one translucent umbrella in front of, and a little below, the subject.
> one smalller, but strong, light to the right of the subject (the viewer's left). This helped to really whiten the white makeup, while keeping the other half more natural looking.
- I used a sharp lense (Nikon Micro 60mm f2.8). This lense has served me well.
- I had my wife stoop down below, and extend here hand up (with a sketching pencil) as though she were sketching my right eye.
- Post processing was fairly straight forward:
> Bumped up the contrast in order to flatten the whites a bit more.
> Dodged a few minor not-so-white spots left over
> Minor USM sharpening and very minor noise reduction.
> Framed with simple black border and converted to JPEG.
That's it.
Statistics
Place: 1 out of 184 Avg (all users): 7.5669 Avg (commenters): 9.3750 Avg (participants): 7.5192 Avg (non-participants): 7.6000 Views since voting: 10835 Views during voting: 398 Votes: 127 Comments: 51 Favorites: 25 (view)
Congrats on the ribbon, not really digging the lighting on the hand, both the lighting in general and the shadow from the brush but the rest is all top notch, a well deserved win.
Wow, thanks for sharing the setup. Seeing all the creativity and effort that went into this shot I appreciate it even more now. DPC is so inspiring and fun particularly thanks to people like you. Thank you!
I see a blue for you too!!! Great job and fantastic setup. Your control of lighting on this one is very well demonstrated to create an image that is thought provoking on many levels! I love it!
For sure the most original of the "half portraits". My only regret is that the top left part of the hand is a bit blown out. But very nice, well composed and executed. Should be on or close the home page.
Unfinished
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