Images by Damian McGillicuddy – story Mike McNamee
A team of the Societies' fellows has been touring the country delivering
mentoring on the Mentor Me Programme. This has proven to be both popular and
successful. At a recent session at DPM Wallbank's facilities in Manchester
we found ourselves with 30 minutes to spare owing to a cancellation. Now the
lighting wizard, Damian McGillicuddy had been laying on demonstrations for
people attending mentoring, majoring on beauty lighting using just two
lights and in confined spaces. Many people had been amazed by the quality of
light he was creating from just two battery-powered flash guns and during
the banter of our 30-mimute break Damian was challenged to produce our front
cover shot with simple gear, in a confined space and within the time we had
to spare.
Never one to shrink from a challenge, he was up from the desk like a shot,
held a quick wardrobe discussion with Lozie, collected a few 'mentored'
students as witnesses and off we went.
The lighting consisted of a single Quantum into Damian's DMLS Beauty Box,
another Quantum to light the wall/background (a wall papered in white
anaglypta). To complete the arrangement Damian placed two, black,
light-controlling killers, either side of the model, very close in and Lozie
held a white reflector on her lap, but angled up towards the main light at
30° above her head so that there was just enough room to poke an 85mm Nikkor
through the gap, using the upright pole of the beauty box as a support.
Lighting power was arranged to provide F5.6 on the backdrop (as measured by
an incident light meter). The camera exposure was set for F4.0 by turning
back the beauty box power. This was to ensure a very shallow depth of field.
To further increase the three-dimensionality of the shot Damian had Lozie
lean her face forward slightly, to increase the distance between the focal
plane (her eyes) and her necklace. Note also that the reflections of the
black killers produce a wide variation of tone in the silver of the
jewellery.
So there you have it, simple, portable lighting, cleverly used, an
exceptionally beautiful model and a result in under 30 minutes – Vogue would
die for this!
ABOVE: The diagram is close to scale. The reflector was angled from the
model's lap up almost to camera level, leaving just a small slit for Damian
to shoot through. LEFT: Lozie changes places with the photographer. This
super-wide angle shot of the model's view shows the black box surrounding
the model. The reflector would be angled up level with Lozie's left
shoulder. The beauty box sits at about a 30° angle above the model's head
ABOVE: Lozie sits in the same position as she is eventually photographed,
but without the reflector in place. Notice how close the rear wall is, a
little under a tile and a half.
ABOVE: There was just enough room on the shooting side of the set for Damian
and four others. The entire set was about six feet from wall to camera.
DAMIAN'S AFTERWORK
No matter how much you 'Get it right' at the taking stage there is always a
little enhancement that can be done in post production to further the
image's impact. Remember though the key word is 'Enhance'; good post work
will make a great image brilliant, but can only go so far in resurrecting a
dud. This image needed very little post work but, by way of total
transparency, I’ll quickly highlight what I have done. Firstly I need to be
true to the chic hairstyle, so that entails getting rid of stray hairs,
balancing its shape and boosting its shine. Next comes skin imperfections,
even top models like Lozie still suffer the odd one or two! These are simply
cloned out. My own 'Special' skin smoothing action is then run on the image.
Note though, the importance of keeping texture. Again for the sake of better
balance, part of the jewellery was cloned, reversed and pasted onto the
opposite side of the subject's neck to fill in an unwanted gap. Finally, the
shoulder and chest area of the subject was dodged to hold these areas back,
lightening the image, to ensure that the viewer's attention is held by the
mask of the face.
Models, Lozie and Charlie are both available for commissions for beauty,
fashion, and art nude-figure work. Further details can be requested by
emailing
lesleymcgillicuddy@mac.com
ABOVE: We thought it only right to show you just how consistent damian's
lighting technique can be. This shot of Charlie was made at the DPM Wallbank
show at Haydock Race Course, using the same lighting technique and again in
a public demonstration. The RAW file was colour-corrected, sharpened using
the techniques described last issue, converted to CMYK and printed here with
no other modifications. It works!
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