The Self Portrait
I haven’t done a portrait shoot in a while, not since late last year. So, to shake off the rust a little bit, I decided to shoot some – of me!
Partly this was because I needed some new headshots for 2022 for my social channels and for LinkedIn. Hey, why not! My beard has been coming in nicely, and I think I’ll keep it for a while. I had just gotten a fresh haircut, and I wanted to try out some differently lighting techniques, in a small place like my apartment living room.
So, over the course of a couple of days last weekend, I tried out different set up, as much as for myself as for portrait shoots down the road for other people.
The general gist of the set up was pretty simple: My Neewer Vision 4 strobe set camera left and high above the subject (Maude the Model in the photo above).
I’m using my Savage Universal Storm Gray seamless background that I can either make more blue or dark black simply by changing the light output and/or the white balance in the camera. In these cases, I cooled it off to give it more of blue gray cast.
The Canon 5DMarkIV did the heavy pixel lifting.
Similar lighting set-up, slightly different pose.
As a next setup, I wanted to try the strobe bit more higher and overhead. This gave more a direct light o on the fact, which was Ok. This was the lighting for the shot that opened this post too.
Side note: Alex Levin, the bassist for The Gaslight Anthem, is now a barber and gave me the haircut. Heh.
As a final set up, I raised the light a little more and brought it forward a little, to get more of a Rembrandt Lighting effect. I also put a reflector below me, something I often forget to do but need to remember it more. Here’s the set up.
And here’s a finished look…
I like this one best
In all these cases, I pulled the images into Photoshop, opened them with Camera Raw and did some light edits to brighten/darken and open up some shadows. I then went in to Nik to convert to B&W or add some vignetting.
It was fun to take a couple of hours to try some things out so that when the time comes with a client, I’ll be ready.
There’s a few other things I want to try…but I’ll save that for another cold, snowy day.
Let me know what you think, or if you have any questions!
© Mark V. Krajnak | JerseyStyle Photography | All Rights Reserved 2022
Instagram | Twitter | LinkTree
JerseyStyle Photography 
Very cool shots, Mark. And I agree: I like the last one the best!
Thanks, Bard!