Jesse Rosten

Title: Super Mom
Location: Kids Kingdom Playground, Redding
Model: Angie and her daughter. Special thanks to Michelle for her stellar make-up work.
Lighting: Three 1200ws strobes (I forget the brand), shoot-thru umbrella, high output fan (for the cape) and a generator to power it all.

For this shot we used the trusty (and glossy) three light setup. No, it’s not the three-light setup you’re thinking of (key, fill, back). It’s an edgier take on the three-light. Actually, it’s more like a four light setup if you count ambient as a light source. So we’ve got a strobe with a shoot-thru umbrella camera left as the key. It’s about a stop over ambient allowing ambient to act as fill. And then to add the “light-wrapped” look, dual strobes coming from behind at 45 degrees. The light from the left strobe was blocked by the swinging girl so doesn’t quite reach the subject, but you can really see the wrap effect on the monkey bars and rear right pole.

Couple things I learned on this project:
1. 20 seconds of adjustment on set can save HOURS of time in post.
2. Dodge & burn and the healing brush are the skin’s best friend. Great way to smooth the skin without ending up with a textureless, poreless, plasticy mess. Let me tell ya from experience, if you’re going to BLUR the skin to smooth it out, be sure to add some texture back in using some high-pass filter. I’m tired of seeing photos of people that look like two eyes and a mouth floating in a solid patch of skin-toned color. Wow. A bit of a mini-rant there.