Max is a friend from college. He is into long boarding which is similar to skateboarding. I thought that it could make some some interesting photos so I asked if I could come along some time the next time he was meeting up with his boys to practice in Dublin. Max was also a model in the DIT Fashion show that I was at. I took some portrait snaps of him for his portfolio and also some pictures of lads doing their thing.
This post is about Max’s shots. The next post will be about the action shots, some of which came out great. For Max’s shots, I was using two Nikon SB600 flashes for the hour or two I was out shooting. I gelled one flash with a 1/4 cto gel to balance the flash for the ambient sun light which I was using as a back light / rim light for some shots. I was using another SB600 usually for a accent / kicker / side light etc etc. Both flashes were set off remotely via radio triggers.
The White Balance setting was set to sunny as far as I can remember. WB on the camera is not as important now for two reasons.
1. I am shooting in RAW which means it can be adjusted in post processing
2. I am experimenting with different processing techniques anyway. WB shift and tinting and split toning.
I was also using a shoot through umbrella to soften up the light. The umbrella was the key light (cto gelled) and generally less than a meter away from Max. All this combined with underexposing the background by about a stop gave the effect that you see. There was no skin retouching with these photos. There was 10 minutes spent in Lightroom setting up the first image and then the settings were copied over to the others with some adjustments for each.
