Kimberly

Mike Dodson · 07-16-2004, 02:50 PM

At the request of Mike McCarty, I am posting a recent photo I took of Kimberly. I am currently about 70% complete with the oil painting but currently have it on hold due to a sibling portrait I am working on taking priority. The goal for this photo was to have the shadow side of the face a bit darker than normal, at least for me anyway. The difficulty in achieving this was working around the cast shadow from the nose across her cheek. When I would move the light around (closer to the front) I would have too much light on the shadow side. I eventually put up a reflector to her left with the light source coming from her right. I still had too much of a cast shadow across the cheek so I modified the shadow in Paint Shop Pro. I was pretty happy with the results, particularly the color distribution.

The light I used for the subject was an Avilux screw in fluorescent (CRI=93; 5500K; 26W). My camera is an Olympus C4000 (4 mp), not the most expensive camera(about $499 at the time I bought it a year ago) but adequate for this type of photography I think.

Sharon Knettell · 07-16-2004, 05:25 PM

Gorgeous picture Mike!

Have you ever tried lowering the light? I have done that and it eliminates that dreadful snout shadow. It works well on only relatively young subjects. If you check out Sargent and Zorn's work. you will notice they used it extensively. It forms a light shadow on the top of the cheek and makes mouths look more voluptuos. It has to be done subtly or you get the ghoul effect.

Mike Dodson · 07-20-2004, 03:42 PM

Sharon,

I think I tried everything with the exception of lowering the light. I plan on taking the weekend and playing around with different lighting in my studio to see what effects I can come up with. I'll try lowering the light also.

I saw in a recent issue of the Artist's Magazine where Nelson Shanks had painted a young girl with similiar lighting to what I have here, particularly the cast shadow behind her nose. It was almost identical.
Studying his handling of the shadow pattern is really helping me with this one as are all of the suggestions I have received here so far.