Headshots

profcombined

These are the two profile photographs I´m using right now (together with a more formal one, wearing jacket). It has proved really useful to have them with black and with white backgrounds, as well as in portrait and squared formats. It is also important to have an easy and fast method to make them, but without losing quality. Both pictures were shot in a really similar way, easy and fast to prepare and with only small and quick changes between them, important if you are shooting for somebody else.
profsetups
The strobes´ positions is almost the same in both photos. I started by placing a softbox as the main light, on the opposite side of the camera the model is looking too, obtaining a broad illumination. After it I placed a strobe fired through a big scrim just below the camera, so it could fill the shadows just a bit. That is the main scheme and is the same for both pics.
In the white background picture I used a third strobe grilled for lighting the background and a white reflector to fill a bit more the shadows on the left of the subject.
In the black one I changed the background (obvious), and turned the reflector to it´s black side, cutting the light in that zone and producing more intense shadows. The third light was turned 180º, so it pulled apart the subject from the background, and I moved it to the right side so I had two well defined zones, a light one with the camera, and a dark one opposed to it, where the model´s gaze is going. I also could flag this last strobe, thus avoiding the flare, but I liked it next to the camera.
Diagrams created with https://www.lightingdiagrams.com/

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