Classmate Portrait-Clint Alwahab

Photojournalism student Clint Alwahab, a self-described "old man", sits with his favorite pipe and a copy of the complete collection of Shakespeare's work during his classmate portrait in the studio at Lee Hills. According to his friends, he is a 60 year old man stuck in a 21 year old's body.

Two light set-up.

For my one light set-up, I set up a medium softbox at a 45 degree angle facing clint’s left side, with the intention of using the Rembrandt lighting. I shot at f/5.0 at 1/250 at ISO 100. Some of my images were quite underexposed because I moved Clint further back without compensating by moving the light or adjusting my aperture. For the first part of the shoot, I accidentally shot on tungsten, and switched to daylight for the latter portion. I am very glad that I wasn’t terribly fond of any of my first shots.

For my multiple light setup I had Clint sit in an antique chair. I used a larger softbox and placed a small light on the ground behind the chair. I used two gels, blue and green, dividing the light in half, and shot at f/11 at 1/250, ISO 100. The strobes were plugged into the A plugs and isolated. My goal was to create a definite division in the colors of the background and place Clint in the middle. Clint is colorblind, so I thought this would be a subtle way to illustrate that without resorting to props. Unfortunately the colors blended more than I estimated, so I have ended up with a bluish-greenish background instead of a blue-green. However, I am pleased with the results because I think the coloring provides for an interesting image.

My only qualm with the image I chose is that his face is slightly underexposed. I did not heed the warnings of my superiors by checking the histogram instead of just the image! Also, I did not realize that the 5D I was using had quite a bit of debris on the sensor. In my submitted image, I corrected the spots but did no further editing. If this is a problem, the rest of the images remain untouched.

An outtake.

My one light setup.

I was very close to submitting this for my final image.