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Lesson Info

Shoot: Oily Skin

there are ten common skin challenges that I ran into as a portrait photographer and I still run into as a fashion photographer there are still people with oily skin there so people with blotchy skin and let's in this particular instance all of this is assuming you don't have makeup available because some of it you can help out with makeup but instead we're going to talk about what you can do in camera and it's not about what you can do in post we're going to go through okay let's say you didn't take my class and you have some of these photos and the skin was oily or it was blemished and you didn't know how to reduce it we'll talk tomorrow about what you could do in photo shop but today is everything you have available to you in camera to get it right so that is the lineup for today and I'm going to get started with oily skin so oily skin happens a couple different ways if some people just simply have boiler skin and the makeup definitely makes a big difference I recommend that you have...

those blotting films blotting papers in your studio all the time would keep them on me and then just lately hit the forehead of the cheeks the problems that we run into our that the skin either looks greasy or sweaty and this becomes even worse if the subject is outside if it's hot if it's going to be I had a studio in upstate new york so it was the summer it was humid and the highlights become distracting and over exposed the person looks hot and then you lose that detail so then when you try to go into retouching it's just blown out highlights and that's pretty much all you see so for each one of these problem areas that we're talking about I'm going to tell you what the challenges are and then we're going to talk about the solutions that we have to solve them so this is what you want to keep with you for each and every one of these challenging skin types keep this with you the solutions whether you just have it on your phone or you review it beforehand so here is what you want keep in mind if your subject has oil your skin you need diffused or low contrast modifiers this supplies all the supplies studio or location so for example oily skin get out of any direct sunlight or any bright surfaces any directional light in the studio you're not going to want to use a contrast the modifier you're going for soft soft soft diffused balanced as far to the side of diffuse as possible and here's why yesterday we looked at how harsher light sources increase contrast in her image so I had a little example where if you drive drugs the contrast lighter to the right in photoshopped highly skip brighter and shadows get darker anything that makes those highly skip brighter is what makes that oily skin even more noticeable and then it's going to be a problem so that's where we start with the fuse and low contrast modifiers for sure the other thing that you do want to take a look at it is if you can use modeling lights if you're in the studio it'll help you see how oily it's appearing because actually the way that you move your light will make a difference maybe they just have a really oily forehead and maybe you don't have your beauty dish angled quite right for your soft box angled quite right and you're getting ah hot spot there so you do want to use you are going to want to use your modeling lights that's really the extent of it just think okay what can I do to get them out of direct light what can I do to get this light softer so I did shoot a couple examples and keep in mind this is what I was talking about for softer light sources soft boxes octa boxes white beauty dish parabolic umbrella with diffusion which we do have here a gigantic one if you're on location that would be maybe using a diffuser so a lot of the reflectors that we have the five and ones they have silver and have white and then in the middle there often diffusion they're kind of ah clear see through a piece of material that's what you might use on location to put between your subject in the sun because that gets rid of contrast it's just like adding diffusion to any like we did yesterday with the beauty dish we made it a little bit softer another thing that you would want to do is use white over silver so white reflectors instead of silver reflectors feathered light instead of direct light let's take a look here's an example in the studio and this is me doing something I wouldn't do anyway is shooting just the bare bulb and these are overexposed beyond recovery they're overexposed highlights and that's what I look at I look at the really bright highlights on her forehead and on her cheeks and all the texture that it created so if I switch over to a beauty dish it improves it it's still noticeable what the benefit is they're not over exposed now if in post they need to bring them down I need to make them a little bit more similar to the skin tone you khun do that compared to the first example words you'd have to actually just retouch it out okay but then if we switch over to a soft box it kind of softens it it evens it out now it looks like a highlight instead of really oily skin now the examples that I used here I picked as oily skin as I could possibly find which means right before we're photographing her we put a ton of baby oil on her face and that's actually we're going to be doing today so even more widely than probably what most of us would encounter so a lot of time just even a little bit oily skin the soft box is going to make a big difference remember also what we said yesterday that the light becomes softer the bigger the light sources so instead of this this is a three foot doctor box maybe you go with a four by six foot soft box that would even make it softer or maybe you don't have it as far back maybe bring it even closer to her the bigger that the light sources in comparison to the subject the softer that it appears so these are all the diff jules we have to try to soften it so there was kind of the before and there is the after much more flattering for that oily skin it would make a huge difference if you switch to a soft box and use blotting papers like your problem is significantly reduced but then of course we also will go on location so we just covered studio when you go outside most important thing is to try to get out of direct sunlight or direct sunlight like let's say that there's a a silver car okay and the sun is hitting that and bouncing back that's kind of like a silver reflector which has a lot of contrast which blows out the highlights on the skin so you want shade white reflectors soft white bounced light anything to get less contrast as you possibly can so here's a simple example she's got kind of it's kind of like sweaty forehead kind of oiled up cheeks and she's just she's chilling on the floor I don't know why we had imposing on the floor there and so then we went ahead and we defuse the light so this is a diffuser right now is doing nothing and then we pop it over head and it softens the light significantly and so now those highlights aren't speculator and now there's not a lot of texture and now it's not over exposed in fact it looks completely find to me that would be very passable and again we're oiling up her skin between like every shot so that would be the essentials of photographing oily skin so we're going to demo that for you now so you can kind of see that in actions of the things I'm looking at well take a look at the modeling lights on dh then the next one is we're going to go on to define wrinkles we have a very sweet guests for that as well all right cool so let's get started with that high on can I perfect so can I have you take a seat right there for me that'll be great okay so we just look out at the audience so can you guys see we use silicon something really shiny and slippery like I picked up the package and it fell out my hand so way we went to severe okay great so would you photo face me now right perfect and we're using a very contrast the modifier but let's invision you're on location and you're just shooting with the flash off camera or on camera it's going to give you a similar effect would be bare ball there's really contrast or if you have a modifier that silver with a speed light on location is going to do the same thing so you wouldn't get far away from those as possible thank you john all right so one of the things that I am doing is I'm taking a look with my modeling light which is the camera will grab that as well I'm taking a look with my modeling light to see what happens to the reflections so I can actually see where they are maybe put them in a place where it looks more it looks like a highlight instead of just you know blown out pretty spot she doesn't actually have oily skin so I can say that and not feel super awkward another thing that I've done in the past thiss takes a little bit more of a setup but I've had subjects where that just their forehead was really oily and for some reason every time I was shooting I was getting a blown out highlight so I would use something which we call a gobo or a flag and it's basically a piece of black material sometimes it gets a little light and sometimes not at all and I would put it between my legs and my subject and just cast a little bit of shadow on that bright highlight does not work if it's on their cheeks were on their chin but if we're really bright highlight it helps that also helps if you have someone who is bald with a very shiny head he didn't hear me I go tonto excellent okay russ we just made fun of you and you weren't listening but it was with love can I have the color checker please okay all right so every shot we're going to grab the color checker usually just hanging off my off my light and if it's a head shot I just leave it in the subject's lab perfect quick shot actually I'm not even perfect that's great I was like I'm not even close to my exposure but I wass good guesser or maybe you set it up for me a perfect okay great and just get one shot here okay great so you'll see there's a really bright light highlights on her forehead it helps a little bit if I sent her the light but she's going to be even brighter on her forehead than before but it did get rid of the highlight on the cheek a lot so you could see that so moving the light makes the difference and I can see that with my uh with my modeling light so just take a look at that consider that okay but I would not shoot that first thing I would do is I would try a beauty dish especially looking at her she has a model's face you know sometimes I want to carve out her cheekbones and make her lips look nice and full like they already are so I would try a white beauty dish with diffusion on it next but for time's sake I'm gonna go to the other extreme so you can see oh well I mean you know we're going to shoot that it's cool he's on top of this we can treat and shoot it um can I have the stock after that too teamwork here he's already three steps ahead that's perfect thank you and same thing the light mostly centered it can see already with the modeling like that it's gotten softer and comfort my eye so a little bit killed okay let's take a look still going to be a bright highlight on her head but not as bright and now we're gonna add diffusion or what they call a sock in that is going to soften it even more on over exposed so what looks off in poland so it softens it a bit not that one all right let's see the big one so I mean it is drastically improved from the first you mind showing the first and the last image while we get this soft box up okay so the highlights aren't has blown out exposure is a little bit different but now this is what I would actually do is that actually grab a soft box s o do beauty dish if you want some of that shape what do use your sock if you don't care about the puffiness or having the control of a beauty dish soft box is the way to go perfect can I rain in just a little bit towards her and then just a little bit this way so it's not in my frame perfect so part of what I'm going to do that way is that it brought the light source in so it's bigger I picked a this is a medium size soft box and I did notice before that the highlights weren't as bad when the light was centered so I would try it like this off to the side if it didn't look good I would boom it out overhead so that's why it's good to have arms and flexibility to do that let's try it right now without a little bit this late was different very um okay next one so now I mean there's no bright highlights at all so that's the biggest biggest thing would be your modifier choice and getting rid of blotting papers thinking of the same thing on location let's go with diffused diffused soft balanced close to the subject and then that's pretty much it so we're going to move on to the next one unless you guys have specific questions I will tell you that this problem oily skin is compounded if someone has darker skin because the highlights look brighter in comparison to the dark skin so you have to mean you don't even have an option of trying a harsher modifier you've got to start soft pretty much right away and that would be a good place to start thank you that was a question that I have a question from fashion tv from singapore who says in view of oily skin based on your experience how best should we shoot sportsmen or sports women with beads of sweat or oily skin when it's a must and shoots do you have any tips as far as that yes okay so that's a makeup artist thing because what was the makeup artist will actually do is they'll put like a foundation or a finish on the skin that makes it so that it's more matt but then they spray water on and it's not pure water it has like oil or some glycerin yeah and so then it beads so their skin doesn't look oily but then they look like they have this intense beads of sweat so that's what I would do and at that point you can go with a little bit harder modifier but if you go too hard then there be the sweat become just little specks of light so yeah that's a makeup artist thing and one from j names what do you use to block the skin bloody it's called blotting fillmore blotting paper you can get one from cbs no problem but there's also ones that are like race paper film and yesterday and our makeup artist section we listen did too specific products that tacoma the makeup ours we had recommended so is the reason that you can't just use like tissue or cloth or something yeah so the tissue usually does more to smear makeup and wipe it off whereas a blotting paper purely absorbs liquid herb or oil so it just preserves the makeup that they have on and really maybe one quick last one from von is it also possible to shoot with a lower exposure so the highlights are not burned out and then add light in post production okay so so basically the person's doing there making sure they don't lose the highlights and then they'll try to bring up the rest of the photograph I mean you can do that I just wouldn't do it to an extreme I would just make sure you're not clipping those highlights like just keep the exposure low enough so they're not totally blown out but if you choose and if you wanted teo that's why a camera like a phase one or something like that is actually even better because it has a dynamic range of fourteen stops you still have that detail it doesn't clip as quickly because it reaches way into the highlights it holds all that information in the highlights and shadows better than a thirty five millimeter camera does that's how it's built so that's another reason why a lot of people shooting professional beauty photography might go that route because even if the highlights or lost a little bit it comes right back into exposure right back into correct exposure so you could do that I wouldn't say under exposed too much just enough not to lose the highlights on then maybe a quick one from dean and you may have actually talked about this yesterday during the makeup segment but do you ever use powder to get rid of the oil specifically yes that was the other option the other option besides blotting papers was oil was powder but it's it's clear and it's hd powder andi it's basically like what I said is when a girl says I need to go powder my nose it's the same thing it just gives you more of a mount finish and absorb some of that oil