Ballet dancer portrait

[BenA]

I've had an idea of having a portrait done of a ballet dancer in a location that you wouldn't call their natural environment. For a while I struggled to think of a suitable location for this but finally I may have found one. In a newish multi story car park for a shopping center (cabot circus for any of you from bristol). This has fairly strong strip lights running all over the ceilings which cast a very faint green tint. My plan was to use the 70-200 so I could compress the lights the run off into the distance and to underexpose the image very slightly, so it looks a bit nitty gritty, while firing a speedlight through a umbrella to light the model off to one side.

As the last time I tried a portrait of this nature I was not very happy with it at all, I thought I'd ask you lot on here to see if you have any advice for me! I'm in need of as much advice as I can get on this matter!

Hope this makes sense!

Thanks,

Ben

 

[-Paul-]

Well it sounds like a good idea. I think the bit about taking a ballet dancer out of their natural enviroment would be very interesting. looking forward to seeing the end results!

 

[GHP]

The main problem is going to be the mixture of light sources.
As you say the fluorescent lights will give a horrible green cast, and if you add flash it will be very difficult to balance the difference in colour temp.
One thing you could do is to gel the flash to match the fluorescent and adjust your white balance to fluorescent.

 

[Sir SR]

The main problem is going to be the mixture of light sources.
As you say the fluorescent lights will give a horrible green cast, and if you add flash it will be very difficult to balance the difference in colour temp.
One thing you could do is to gel the flash to match the fluorescent and adjust your white balance to fluorescent.

Beat me to it!

Or lots more light to overpower the ambient maybe, but that might negate the benefit of your location?

Looking forward to the pics!

S

 

[GHP]

Incidentally, the gel you need for this is a 30CC Green on your flash.
If you then set your camera to "flourescent", you should be good to go.
If shooting raw, I would shoot a grey card (or a colorcheck passport etc), and balance to that in LR or Cr.
Or, if all else fails, and there are all sorts of horrible color casts, convert to B/W !!
Hope this isn't teaching you to suck eggs !!
And dont forget to post the pics !!

 

[Deleted member 67219]

I *love* shooting under fluro lights. Shoot to make it look a little cross processed and it'll be awesome.