Portrait of Pauline

I had been working with a local espresso bar for a few years, documenting their development from one small station coffee van to a chain of coffee shops. From the outset the owners, Cathrine, an energetic Norwegian visionary, and her husband, Simon, an ex-international male model (he’s the beautiful guy in some of those Levi’s ads!), had a clear vision of their photography. The images they were after were to be monochrome and aggressively cropped with intense eye contact. For me, this was a client from heaven!

Every few months, we would take some of their customers and create a new set of imagery that would then be used to adorn the walls in their flagship espresso bar just down the road from our studio. These photographs became so popular that people begged to be included in the next shoot! One day we were given the contact details for a lady called Pauline. Simon and Cathrine filled us in by telling us she was in her eighties, she drank espresso every day and furthermore was thoroughly excited to be a subject for the wall. Oh, and she always wore a bright, red, woollen, beret!

So, slightly nervously, we booked her into the studio for her shoot and then it was a case of waiting for the big day to arrive.

The Thinking

Stylistically, at least, I was excited about this session. In my head, I had a vision of a smooth, sophisticated monochrome image, a gentle contrast, a shot that would maybe have a little warm tone to it.

I knew I wanted to avoid that gnarly, exaggerated black and white imagery you so often see in character portraits of older subjects. I wanted this to be beautiful. I wanted it to be striking because it was beautiful, not because it was sad or heavily processed. However, at this stage, I still hadn’t met my subject and so to some degree, at least, I was unsure how possible this approach might be.

I rarely pre-meet my subjects and, to be truthful, I prefer it that way: I love the excitement of opening the door, welcoming them in and figuring out on the spot what will work. The way they dress, the way they carry themselves, their hair, their body shapes, their makeup, their expressions. I simply love the process of figuring it out and creating something for them on the spot. I get a real kick out of it, and I think I’m more creative when working this way.

However, with Pauline, I knew I had little time and, by all accounts, she was quite frail, since she walked using a stick. So this time I pre-visualised what I hoped to shoot, setting up the studio and lighting ready. Of course, I still didn’t know what Pauline would be wearing or what she looked like, but I figured I would always be able to change tack if I needed to.

The Shoot

When Pauline arrived with her…

The Setup

A simple chair, two strip boxes and a key light. Nothing more. I turned the chair through ninety degrees so that her elbow would be at an angle across the chair back, a little like someone leaning on a bar. I thought that it would add a little more energy to the pose. 

Two strip boxes were used from the back to gently lift her outline from the background. I always use strip-boxes for this purpose as they form a subtle, gentle, even light rather than using spots or dished heads that create a much harsher outline. I chose a mid-grey background paper roll since this seemed the most appropriate for the image. 

I brought the key light in last and adjusted it to create a gentle pool of light on Pauline’s face but with those characteristic catchlights that bring the image to life. Throughout the session I adjusted this light on an ongoing basis to ensure her face was always perfectly lit. 

Using big (or bounced) light sources is more subtle and flattering than small, point light sources that give harsh textures and hard shadows. These images of Pauline were illuminated with three large softboxes – two to create the subtle rim lighting and one to light Pauline’s face. Adjust the power of each to create the look you’re after. 

Note: If you don’t have strip boxes, try spinning the strobes away and to the back, bouncing the light off the studio walls or reflectors. Before I invested in the strip boxes, this was my solution, and it’s effective – you have to make sure the light doesn’t strike your background unless that’s the effect you want to create.

Post Production

There is almost no retouching on the image but there is a little magic in the conversion to monochrome. I selected the sweater using a simple mask and changed it to blue, which isn’t hard to do with such a strong colour, and you can use the ‘Selective Color’ function or, in the more recent versions of Photoshop CC, use ‘Select Subject’ and then deselect the areas you don’t want. But I wanted that sweater to be anything but red!