Photo Monday: Shanté As Mary Magdalene
Ecstasy - Model: Shanté. 1/125s @ f/7.1, ISO100, 70mm focal length.
Shot with Canon EOS-1D Mark II with EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM lens
Shot with Canon EOS-1D Mark II with EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM lens
I love this image!
It's perhaps the most treasured one I've shot so far, for a number of reasons. From a photographic standpoint, it represents sort of a high-water mark for me so far: the tones are exactly what I wanted them to be; the lighting is perfect for the effect I wanted, and the composition captures the mood just as I'd envisioned it.
And the look on Shanté's face encapsulates the best aspects of her being: tranquility, confidence, strength and a deep beauty that I was able to capture in that one split-second, for posterity's sake. It's not perfect -- this is completely unretouched, aside from the monochroming, but it's as close as I've gotten so far.
This shot, like all other digital RAW images, began life as a full-color image, after it's ingested by any RAW converter. But I knew that this image would be incredible as a monochrome, or black and white image. So, after import, the first step was to go to grayscale. The easy way in Adobe Lightroom or Bridge is to click "Convert to Grayscale," which I did. Once the image was grayed, using saturation controls, I tweaked the red hue to darken the shawl a touch (the shawl was red in the original color image, so dropping the saturation slightly led to the low-middle gray that the shawl is rendered in here).
Shanté's skin-tone came out of the camera perfectly, so no tweaking was necessary there. The blacks got a tiny bit darker with the "black" slider in the basic controls of Lightroom set to "8." I sharpened a touch, (your tastes may vary), and that was that. Four steps to near-perfection.
And the image, I think is priceless.
It's perhaps the most treasured one I've shot so far, for a number of reasons. From a photographic standpoint, it represents sort of a high-water mark for me so far: the tones are exactly what I wanted them to be; the lighting is perfect for the effect I wanted, and the composition captures the mood just as I'd envisioned it.
And the look on Shanté's face encapsulates the best aspects of her being: tranquility, confidence, strength and a deep beauty that I was able to capture in that one split-second, for posterity's sake. It's not perfect -- this is completely unretouched, aside from the monochroming, but it's as close as I've gotten so far.
This shot, like all other digital RAW images, began life as a full-color image, after it's ingested by any RAW converter. But I knew that this image would be incredible as a monochrome, or black and white image. So, after import, the first step was to go to grayscale. The easy way in Adobe Lightroom or Bridge is to click "Convert to Grayscale," which I did. Once the image was grayed, using saturation controls, I tweaked the red hue to darken the shawl a touch (the shawl was red in the original color image, so dropping the saturation slightly led to the low-middle gray that the shawl is rendered in here).
Shanté's skin-tone came out of the camera perfectly, so no tweaking was necessary there. The blacks got a tiny bit darker with the "black" slider in the basic controls of Lightroom set to "8." I sharpened a touch, (your tastes may vary), and that was that. Four steps to near-perfection.
And the image, I think is priceless.
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Tony I am so impressed with your lighting. It's not over or under lit...no hard contrast lines... not too soft....just beautiful. This is absolutely amazing. I'm loving it and of course, it doesn't hurt having such a beautiful model. Mwah!! ;0) Love it. Keep 'em coming! -Ingy
Thanks Ingy, and welcome to the 'Hustle!!
I'm glad you're enjoying the image. I think the lighting is on point too. Sometimes you capture lightning-in-a-bottle. This is one of those moments!
And yes, great lighting is only obvious when the subject of the image is so beautiful.
I hope you take a peek at the prior Photo Monday image. You might like that one as well. And believe me, I am working to make sure that I have more stunners to show!
Don't be a stranger...stranger! :) Mwah!!