Classmate Portrait

Seth Putnam, 21, is a magazine writing student at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He poses in the studio for a classmate-portrait assignment for Rita Reed's Advanced Techniques in Photojournalism class.

I chose the first photo because it's an example of Rembrandt lighting up close without the context of the other side of the face. Also, Seth seems to be a sincere, observant and pensive person (he's a magazine writing student, after all), and I feel this photo may capture some of that.

While Seth may be serious at times, he's also silly and adventurous. The second photo may suggest his willingness to let go of inhibitions.

How'd we do it?



Using the reflective meter in my camera (meter in studio was broken and equipment window was closed), I chose ISO 100, 1/125 near f16. Although I bracketed because I wasn't using an incident meter.

I placed a large soft box at a 45-degree angle from Seth to the right of the camera. The first shot is a one-light shot.



The second was made using a silver reflector to the left of the camera almost parallel to Seth's body, but just slightly turned toward him, in order to bring light to his face.