Oct 8, 2011 Posted on Oct 8, 2011 | 0 comments

You Don’t Always Get What You Want

Back story…
My studio is currently undergoing renovations. The space is only 450 sq. ft. and consisted of 3 rooms: kitchen/living room, bedroom & bathroom. All in all, this isn’t the worst space in the world, and I am very grateful for what I have. I used the living room area for my light set ups and backed up into the kitchen to shoot. 9′ x 19′ total. Workable, but somewhat cramped. Especially when I shot those 3 teenage boys in there…

So I had the wall that separated the living room from the bedroom removed, and instead of all the black & white bed sheets hanging on the walls to conceal the green walls, I decided to paint as well. After much research, I chose a neutral grey color, instead of the popular white and sometimes dreary black options. I brought my grey card to the paint store and long story short the guy volunteered to ‘custom mix’ my grey.
BIG MISTAKE. Upon picking up the paint, the sample swatch looked quite blue to me, but I blamed my bad eyes and chanced it. However, after Fred & I painted the whole studio… it STILL LOOKED BLUE. I hate blue. And the idea of potentially introducing blue color casts had me sick. But repainting had me feeling sicker!

Oh no… what to do?

The place was a mess, but I figured the best thing to do was a few ‘test’ shots, with lights and Fred, to see the effect the blue walls had on an actual photo. I just took 2 seconds and threw 3 lights up, one bare bulbed AB800 on the left of Fred, pointed at the wall, one bare bulbed AB800 on the right and pointed at Fred and one AB800 in a 36″ x 48″ soft box in front and slightly to the left, angled down. I have no idea what the settings were, probably what they were on from the last time I used them. I quickly fired off a dozen shots and promptly downloaded them into the computer.

Well, you can see in the ‘before’ shot that it wasn’t my imagination. Blue as all get out. It was a pretty simple fix in Photoshop to turn the wall grey and fix the cast, but I just couldn’t stand the thought of blue in the end. The next day it was back to the paint store (a different one) with the grey card in hand. This time the sample matched perfectly and Fred & I re-painted that night. I have yet to take any test shots, but regardless, I am satisfied that the color is now the grey that I chose. In the end, I have to admit that I just love this photo of Fred. So you may not always get what you want, but at least it’s something

Retouching took oh, about the usual 10 hours.

After:

Retouch comparison:

Close up:

Light set up:
AB800 bare bulb on the right & pointed at subject
AB800 bare bulb on the left of subject and pointed at the wall
AB800 in 36″ x 48″ soft box in front and slightly to the left, angled downward
Triggered with Paul C. Buff Cybersyncs

Photos by Regina Pagles