Shadows are as interesting as the light. Chiaroscuro is a term used in photography, as well as cinema and painting, that literally means “light-dark” and originates from the Italian Renaissance. The shadows help define the image, making the two dimensional appear three dimensional.

The idea for this shoot was to have the model, Saori, emerging into the light from the shadows. To get that effect, I used a black seamless background, making sure that the key light did not spill onto it by keeping them well-separated. I started with a large gridded softbox close to Saori, on camera right to light the portraits and close-ups, highlighting Julia’s makeup work. By moving the softbox in very close, the light falls off quickly so the opposite side of her face is quite a bit darker than the side with the light. To control the shadow’s darkness I used a large white foamcore panel and a silver disk reflector for fill light.

For the full body shots, I really wanted to get the shadowy look, so I used a more focused light – a gridded strobe on a boom in front and above Saori. For an interesting background, I put a fog machine and another strobe to backlight the smoke/fog behind Saori. For some of the shots, I used a blue gel on the strobe to make a blue smoke effect. With this set-up, Saori’s face was well lit and her body gradually became darker, fading into blackness.

Post-processing was done with Lightroom 3.3 and Photoshop CS5.

Credits:
Inspired modelling by Saori Sloan
Beautiful peacock themed makeup by Julia Lockley

Music credit: Tiffany Sevilla – ME IDM al-Hilwa di

Here are some images from a recent collaboration that I did with makeup artist Meghan Thomas and actor, model, dancer Genevieve Clements. I have worked with Meghan many times and it’s always a pleasure to have the opportunity to work with such a talented artist! This was the second photoshoot that I did with Genevieve. As an actor and dancer, Genevieve has great expression and body awareness, which makes her a wonderful photography model to work with.

In preparation for the shoot, I read up on the Greek myth of Medusa (in Wikipedia of course!) and found out that she had two sisters, both also Gorgons – monsters with snakes for hair and the power to turn anyone to stone with their gaze. Her sisters were immortal, but Medusa was not, and was killed by Perseus by chopping off her head. The winged horse Pegasus sprung from Medusa’s blood. Pegasus was the offspring of Medusa and the god of the sea Poseidon. In ancient times, Medusa was monstrous in appearance, but later was depicted as beautiful (except for the snakes).

In this shoot, we wanted to invoke the symbolism of Medusa – a combination of feminine beauty and snake imagery. We did two different sets – the first was shadowy with a dark background and lighting to show the body painting work. For the second set, I used a handpainted background featuring ancient Greek columns to go with the Greek myth theme. Here’s a photo gallery with more images from the shoot.

Animated Gifs

I love these animated gifs and wanted to try something like that myself. I did a photoshoot a couple of months ago with model Kristina and used a fog machine to create a misty background. It would be cool to show the mist swirling around in a short animated gif. The original photo had some mist, but I wanted to add some more in Photoshop and then animate it.

Original:

Model Kristina - Original Photo

Animated:

Kristina Fog Animation

Photoshop CS5

Level of difficulty: Intermediate. You should be familiar with working with layers, resizing images and using the warp tool.

Create the mist layers:

(Click on the screen shots to zoom)

• Create a blank layer above the edited/retouched photo
• Paint some mist on the blank layer & name the layer Mist 1. I used these mist brushes by SpiritSighs.


Mist Brushes

• Copy the layer, name it Mist 2 and warp it using Edit => Transform => Warp. You can warp the mist to make it look like it has drifted around.
• Copy the warped layer and repeat with another warp (Mist 3).
• Copy the above layer and warp it again (Mist 4). You will now have the original image plus four mist layers above it. Click on Fig. 1 to expand.


Fig. 1 Layer palette with mist layers

Create the Animation Frames:

• Select the 5 layers and open the animation window (Window => animation – Fig. 2). Make sure you are in frame view (Fig. 3).


Fig. 2 Opening the Animation Window

Fig. 3 Animation window in frame view

• Click on the frame and duplicate it by dragging it to the new frame icon. Repeat this four times to give a total of 5 frames (Fig. 4 & 5).

Fig. 4 Duplicating the frame

Fig. 5 Duplicating the frame

• Click on the first frame. Go to the layers panel and make only the base layer (retouch) visible (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6 Click on the eye to hide, click again to reveal layer

• Click on the second frame and make the retouch layer on the Mist 1 layer visible using the layers panel
• Click on the third frame and make the base layer & the Mist 2 layer visible.
• Click on the fourth frame and make the base layer & the Mist 3 layer visible
• Click on the fifth frame & make the base layer & the Mist 4 layer visible
• Select all 5 frames by clicking on the first and Shift-Clicking on the last one.
• Change the frame delay time to 0.1 (Fig. 7) You can try different timings depending on what works best for your project.

Fig. 7 Change frame delay

Tween the animation to make it run more smoothly

• Click on the first frame and Shift-click on the second frame
• Go to the animation menu and choose Tween… (Fig.

Fig. 8 Animation Menu

• Enter 10 in the “frames to add box” and select all layers, and position & opacity (Fig. 9)

Fig. 9 Tween Dialog Box

• Select frames 12 & 13 and repeat the Tween for these two frames. Repeat this for frames 23 & 24 and 34 & 35 (See Fig. 10)

Fig. 10 Tweening Frames

• Duplicate the last frame (45) and move it to the front
• Tween the first and second frames as before. This makes the animation smoothly cycle back to the beginning.
• Make sure the repeat mode is “Forever”
• Save everything!

Check it out – when you press the play button you will have a pretty smooth animation!

Save the animated gif

• Resize the image to the size that you want (I used a height of 375 pixels because it gave me a file size under 2 MB). Go to Image => Image Size and select the size that you want, making sure to lock the aspect ratio.
• Go to File => Save for Web & Devices.
• Set to “forever”
• Select Gif and Save (Fig. 11)

Fig. 11 Saving the GIF

To view the animated gif, open it with your browser.

I’m looking forward to doing some more of these animations and have lots of ideas for future shoots! If you have tried it, please share by posting a link in the comments section.

Medusa: 1/250 sec, f/10, ISO 100

I was inspired by the ballet dancer photograph (see below) by Chase Jarvis and decided to try a similar lighting style for a photoshoot that I did last week. I was shooting body painting work by makeup artist Meghan Thomas for actor, model and dancer Genevieve Clements. The theme was Medusa, the gorgon of Greek mythology with venomous snakes for hair and the power to turn to stone anyone who looked at her face.

Ballet Dancer by Chase Jarvis

I wanted a dark, shadowy look for the Medusa theme, but also wanted to make sure that the body painting was visible. To achieve this, I used a black seamless paper background and positioned two softboxes behind the model, one on each side. This is similar to the set up for the Chase Jarvis ballet dancer shot. I then added two gridded strobes in front to use as spotlights for highlighting the makeup and body painting. I also used two large black foamcore panels to block the light from the softboxes to prevent lens flare (see the lighting diagram below).

Post-processing was done with Lightroom 3.4 and Photoshop CS5. I increased the contrast and did some light retouching, but kept the colours to highlight the body painting.

Let me know what you think. Do you have some lighting techniques that you use to give a shadowy look?

Lighting Setup for Medusa Shoot

Lighting diagram courtesy of Kevin Kertz.

Here’s a short video slideshow with images from March 28, 2011 shot in the studio in Vancouver.

Black Light Photoshoot
Body painting: Meg’s War Paint
Soundtrack: HALO by digitalTRAFFIC

UV Photography by Vancouver based photographer Lloyd K. Barnes.
Video created using Animoto.

This photo is from a black light photoshoot that I did with model Genevieve and makeup artist Meghan Thomas Meg’s War Paint.

If you want to see some more photos check out this gallery.

Meghan body painted Genevieve with tire tracks and ghost-like faces for a haunted car theme, loosely based on the Stephen King book Christine.

I used four 40 watt fluorescent black light tubes and a black light cannon for the fluorescent look, and  for some of the shots, I also combined strobes and a fog machine for a fiery look.

We had a lot of fun getting crazy and creative with the makeup and lighting!

I dream of languages anew
Grammars undiscovered
A word for a half glance in a dream in the desert
While thinking we met in another lifetime
With fog descending in silence

Model: Chloe G.

Beautiful Chinese opera inspired makeup: Nikki Simpson

Hair Styling: Nikki Simpson

Photography by Vancouver photographer Lloyd K. Barnes

I Dream of Languages Anew written by Lloyd K. Barnes

Music: dream mechanics – blow and blow

Here is a gallery with more photos from the photoshoot

What is language?

According to Dictionary.com:

Language [lang-gwij]

Languages can be chemical – pheromones or the genetic code of DNA. In the short story “The God’s Script” in Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings, by Jorge Luis Borges, an Aztec priest searched for a divine message in the spots of a jaguar.

I’m intrigued by the idea that one language could express ideas that cannot be expressed in another. There is a visual language used in photography that communicates ideas and emotions that cannot be expressed by words. Is is possible that anything can represent anything else if we know how to translate or decode the message?

Credits:
Model: Stephanie Peregrinus
Bodypainting: Meg’s War Paint
Music: ®Evolution by Melange Promenade

Video created using Animoto.

Here’s a video slideshow created with photos shot using a 400 watt UV cannon as the main light source.  In an earlier post about black light photography, one of the readers suggested trying a UV cannon, a special effects light often used by clubs and DJs.  In my other shoots, I used four 40 watt fluorescent tubes. They worked well, but it would be nice to have a more powerful light source to allow me to use a faster shutter speed and lower ISO.

American DJ UV Cannon

The black light cannon worked well, but was different to work with compared to the fluorescent tubes. The main advantage of the UV cannon was how is easy to set up. You just point it at the model and plug it in. It takes about 10-15 minutes to warm up and gives a good strong light. It can be moved around and repositioned, although it should be turned off and cooled down before moving it to avoid damaging the bulb.

I was surprised that it doesn’t give off as much light as I thought.  I expected it to be much more powerful than the 160 watts from the 4 fluorescent tubes. In practice, it was not really more powerful than the four fluorescent tubes, mainly because I can put the tubes very close to the model most of the time, which is not practical with the UV cannon.  Also, the UV cannon is a hard light source that casts a sharp shadow, making the light quality quite different than the fluorescent tubes.  I surround the model with the tubes, reducing shadows and creating a more even light. I placed a white nylon diffusion panel in front of the UV cannon to help soften the light, which further reduced the power from the light.

Overall, the UV cannon would probably work best placed in front and above the model in a butterfly lighting setup. It also would be best to use when you want dramatic shadows. It’s high power would also work great for lighting backgrounds and sets. I’m continuing to explore different ways to use it.

I’m interested in hearing from other photographers who have done UV photography – any suggestions or ideas? What is your favourite UV light set up?

Here’s the same video on YouTube for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch:

Here are a some some photos that I took on the roof deck of The Studio by Mika Does Makeup with model Ariel K. Marie. It was pretty cold up there so it was a very quick shoot! It’s a beautiful location with a great view, so I’m looking forward to another shoot when the weather gets a little warmer. I hope that you have a happy Valentine’s Day!

Valentine's Makeup by Mika

Click to see more Valentine's photos with Ariel K. Marie

Credits:

Video created with the help of Animoto.

Model: Rachel
Makeup: Talysia Ayala
Styling: Vincent Lee
Photography: Lloyd K. Barnes

Thanks also to Tiffany May Photography who collaborated on this project, providing much inspiration, creativity and assistance!

Production

For the background, we used “Super White” seamless paper, available from Savage or B&D. It glows blue under black light. We cut different sized hearts out of pink fluorescent bristol board and hung them from the studio’s ceiling with fishing line. We set up four 48 inch 40 watt fluorescent black light tubes – one on each side of Rachel,  one overhead and the fourth on the floor to surround the model with black light.

Here’s what the setup looked like (the fourth tube on the floor is not shown):

Skin tends to look very dark under black light, so to help make the model’s face more visible, we positioned a White Lightning X800 strobe with a grid in front of the model, and for some the shots we used a hand-held white LED flashlight to light the model’s face. We also used a white disk reflector, which gave off a blue glow, to help light the model.

Camera settings
Initially, I used ISO 100, f/1.4, 1/25th second exposure with a Sigma 30mm lens. I then wanted to get some shots with a longer focal length so I switched to my 50-200 mm using ISO 200 and 1/10 sec at f/2.8. I used a tripod and a cable release to minimized unwanted motion blur. I wanted to minimize noise by using the lowest ISO that I could get away with. Depending on your camera, you may be comfortable going to higher ISO and faster shutter speeds.

Post-processing
I used Lightroom 3.3 to adjust the colours, exposure, noise reduction, and some local brush adjustments. I completed the editing in Photoshop CS4 – mainly retouching and removing the visible fishing lines that the hearts were attached to.

Check out my previous posts about black light photography if you are interested in seeing more!

Black Light Love

Valentine’s Day Black Light slideshow:

Black Light Love – Images by Lloyd Barnes