Jeans and Gels
A girl in her jeans, so simple, so clean, so often seen as well, it is after all a staple of jeans advertising.
The wall behind Carla is a messy paint finish on an off-white base, but I wanted to put some colour into this image for impact. I have used a simple red gel on a gridded light to push colour onto the off-white base background.
Carla is lit by a conventional studio white strobe.
This mix of white light and coloured light is important, if Carla was lit by the coloured light as well the impact of the colour scheme would be lost. In fact you need white light somewhere in the image to make the colour actually look colour, otherwise you end up with a toned monochrome look to the image.
You can adjust the relative powers of the main and background lights to adjust the level of saturation in the back colour.
Carla's pose in the first image is strong and assertive, a girl who takes no prisoners.
Although clearly set up to be a colour shot, notice how this look is still very effective as a monochrome image. You can use differently levels of Red, Green and Blue when creating a mono image - the default style would be use to a large component of red, which of course means the red coloured background goes to white.
I've pushed the main light more to one side, still making sure the white light does not fall on the coloured background. This shift in the light creates a more dramatic image.
The posing is such that with very little movement of the arms and shoulders you can switch between a guarded and closed look to an open and revealing look.
key points
Experiment with different methods of creating monochrome shots - don't use greyscale - it's the least interesting.
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