#47 – September 8, 2021

Hello!

My new 18″ ring light arrived on Tuesday and I tested it out on my wife.

You could even say I put a ring on it!

Actually, I like having people visit my blog, so if you could forget I said that we can all move along with our lives.

The ring lights make beautiful flat beauty lights and the feminine skin loves a nice flat light as it has the effect of reducing visible wrinkles.  Male skin looks better when you light to enhance the wrinkles and “life experience”, but for the ladies, photographers tend towards lighting to flatter.

I never edit skin to the plastic stage but 99% of my female clients have hinted, begged, or downright demanded that I “do what I can to help me out”. My wife is the exception to the rule, not allowing me to publish this unless we were both satisfied I had performed no major editing on her face.

This is my wife with her preferred level of daily makeup, none. 

I love how this photograph turned out and how the black and white toning looks. I also love the person in the photo but that is not biasing my love of the portrait. The way the ring light (which was the only light used) hits the face and then drops off allowing the light (or lack of it) to sculpt her cheekbones. And please allow me to nerd out on the creamy smooth shadow under the chin. My favourite part of the editing is the tone of the hair in the bottom right. Now if only I could replicate that, I’d be thrilled!

And it goes without saying (but I will), but how awesome are the catchlights in her eyes!

I foresee this light being used a lot in future portrait and personal work. Hurry up and finish lockdown!

That’s it for now. Talk to you soon. Stay safe.

Richard