How I Shot This Farm House Environmental Portrait with a Perforated Cardboard
Feb 26, 2016
Gustavo Pomar
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I took this photo as part of a lighting class in Costa Rica. The theme was people who represent the spirit of the farm where the class was held. It was a colonial building hidden in the country side of Costa Rica. While we were fortunate to have a great model, I used a few simple tricks to make the scene work.
We shot with a Nikon D800E and picked a Nikkor 80-200 f2.8 lens to get the composition right. See how the frame is tightly cropped to make all the surrounding noise disappear. Camera settings were ISO 200, F4.5 1/160.
Lighting
I went with three lights for this photo, all were Yongnuo YN560 III strobes. One strobe was placed with a gridspot as a kicker (the gridspot is there to avoid any light spill). The other two strobes were placed in two softboxes. One from behind the subject to create some contour and the other one at about 45 degrees. This is where the magic happened :)
That 45 degrees softbox did not have a diffusion panel. Instead it had a perforated cardboard square which acted like a gobo and sprinkled shadow and light game onto the scene giving a warm afternoon feeling.
A small nudge in post
Lastly, in Photoshop I added a bit of light rays using volumetric light, those are the light rays that you are seeing in the scene, which adds just the right atmosphere.
About The Author
Gustavo Pomar is a photographer and educator from Santa Fe, Argentina. You can see more of his work in his website and connect over in Facebook.
We love it when our readers get in touch with us to share their stories. This article was contributed to DIYP by a member of our community. If you would like to contribute an article, please contact us here.
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16 responses to “How I Shot This Farm House Environmental Portrait with a Perforated Cardboard”
Great idea!
You had me until Photoshop
Lol, same here
troll post
The efect in the subject face is obviously made with the softbox mod, as for the rays of light it can be done without photoshop with an artificial haze machine (fog is to thick)
As simple as that.
Great idea have to try it
“Instead it had a perforated cardboard square which acted like a gobo” …wrong, the cardboard IS a gobo, not just an actor…
Misleading.
Very smart lighting technique! I like it Gustavo.
Verdaderamente no tiene desperdicio. Muy buena foto
Gracias Andres Bonomi
Bien ahí Gustavo !!!!!!!! felicitaciones
Love it! One way to get the same effect without Photoshop would be haze. Either from a machine or canned haze. As a videographer, I use that frequently for this same effect. Love the cardboard gobo idea, will have to steal that!
Gracias Jonathan Costa Rica
Given that the most interesting part of the article is the use of the perforated cardboard, it would be nice to see the SOOC result without the PS nudgery.
Gustavo , como siempre logra ambientaciones únicas con ingenio y practicidad. Excelente