fine art nude...lighting setups

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by Light Currents

Well, I would agree that when you view infrared shots that appears to be true. But in reality, it's not universally true. I think the reason is in the way people shoot. I've read many (infrared) blogs and without a doubt most people say (and think) that infrared should be shot at high noon, to maximize the sun's influence. But that's not the case.

Okay.

I just jumped on deviantART and searched for "infrared nude". Thousands of images on there, both outdoor and in studio. You might look at those for examples.

You have to be a registered dA member to see images tagged as Mature Content, however.

[Light Currents]

Originally Posted by brian.austin

I just jumped on deviantART and searched for "infrared nude". Thousands of images on there, both outdoor and in studio. You might look at those for examples.

Thanks, good advice. In all the reading I've done about infrared lately, I never once thought about deviantart. I don't go there much. But a search showed lots of good examples.

I think the best thing to do is what Mr. Hobby recommends: brew a cup of coffee and sit back and analyze some pics.

Mark, same goes for you. Dig up some pics you think are good and spend time analyzing them.

[Bill Giles]

What little fine art nude work that I have done in the studio has been with a single strip dome or window light cut to a slit by curtains. I have shot outdoor infrared nudes and indoor natural light infrared on High Speed Infrared film. I have shot a little digital infrared, but don't have a digital camera that is set up for infrared. The thing that I noticed about infrared film is a limited contrast range. When I first used it, I bracketed five stops and found that some shots had such a wide dynamic range that I had black shadows or blown out highlights in all of the exposures. This is especially true when I am using bright sunlight through a window to produce dramatic shadows. While not necessarily wanting to soften the light, I do want to reduce its intensity. I would probably use a scrim between the light source and the model. I have some black mesh tarps that will do this or might use a ND gel. I've known several photographers that shot outdoor infrared figure work and they just looked for the right light.

[Light Currents]

Originally Posted by Bill Giles

What little fine art nude work that I have done in the studio has been with a single strip dome or window light cut to a slit by curtains. I have shot outdoor infrared nudes and indoor natural light infrared on High Speed Infrared film. I have shot a little digital infrared, but don't have a digital camera that is set up for infrared. The thing that I noticed about infrared film is a limited contrast range.

Thanks, Bill. Good advice. Yes, the limited contrast can be inherent in many lighting environments. I found that is because the dynamic range of infrared exposure (at least with my camera) seems to stay in a compact range, often taking up only about 1/2 the space on a histogram. But I find that a good thing in some ways. It helps to prevent clipping on either end and a simple tweak in levels expands the range.

As I mentioned, I need to use ND to bring exposure times down so as to use OCF but have read ND doesn't really affect infrared. But that was read on the internet and you know how that goes - I will have to try it for myself. But that type of dilemma would also affect normal, non-infrared shooting in bright sunlight when there is a necessity to bring PC sync speeds down. I know my 5D craps out at 1/200. I'm doing the infrared with a 20D and offhand, don't know what the sync speed is there.

Your scrim idea is excellent! I never thought of it! Infrared is all about mood and drama. A black mesh or whatever in front of the camera might play into it rather well!