We drew a cold rainy day but a pretty good situation: a private porch, very low contrast in lighting overall (digital has been about as rough as slide film as regards its sensitivity within a confined range), and a terrific lens: Nikon’s old 105mm f/2.5 AI-S. The whole thing together nicely, but it’s also equivalent to old school “northern light”. Post-production selective coloration and vignetting give it its little bit of kick.
What you’re doing is much more difficult, and may have really to do with slowing down time.
My old wet darkroom equipment is in boxes around here (except for the enlarger that is sitting a few feet away from my keyboard on the case of an equally old lighting kit). A few years ago, I may have said there’s nothing quite like the depth of a “silver print” on a large sheet of double-weight Agfa, but the sensors and software have gotten terribly good at getting range. I’m now a generation behind — and there’s no catching up without a deluge in new business — and still able to tease out a fair amount of depth in dimension from exposures.
One still needs a terrifically right initial exposure to have some options afterwards.
Focus (where you want it) and exposure are the critical things, everything else follows. 😉
The conceptual ability to know where inside the reality the picture is going to be may be the more critical driver. In the rote engineering, depth of field and an exposure fit to the object — with humans, generally skin (or gray card) on the shadow side (that’s how I pose) gets the middle of the range, but with people, it seems arrangements — producing — is the work: then everything else follows! 🙂
Communicating Arts - The Journal 
Great control of light on your portrait. Just right, I reckon.
We drew a cold rainy day but a pretty good situation: a private porch, very low contrast in lighting overall (digital has been about as rough as slide film as regards its sensitivity within a confined range), and a terrific lens: Nikon’s old 105mm f/2.5 AI-S. The whole thing together nicely, but it’s also equivalent to old school “northern light”. Post-production selective coloration and vignetting give it its little bit of kick.
What you’re doing is much more difficult, and may have really to do with slowing down time.
My old wet darkroom equipment is in boxes around here (except for the enlarger that is sitting a few feet away from my keyboard on the case of an equally old lighting kit). A few years ago, I may have said there’s nothing quite like the depth of a “silver print” on a large sheet of double-weight Agfa, but the sensors and software have gotten terribly good at getting range. I’m now a generation behind — and there’s no catching up without a deluge in new business — and still able to tease out a fair amount of depth in dimension from exposures.
One still needs a terrifically right initial exposure to have some options afterwards.
Focus (where you want it) and exposure are the critical things, everything else follows. 😉
The conceptual ability to know where inside the reality the picture is going to be may be the more critical driver. In the rote engineering, depth of field and an exposure fit to the object — with humans, generally skin (or gray card) on the shadow side (that’s how I pose) gets the middle of the range, but with people, it seems arrangements — producing — is the work: then everything else follows! 🙂