About the image

This shoot was inspired by the Gilded Age and historical photos of the Astors and Vanderbilts. For the shoot I went for a hand-painted canvas backdrop in grey and large red floral arrangements in large gold goblets on a three-tiered flower stand. I also brought in a chair for a few of the images; however, the chair I had wasn’t of the right era. For lighting, I tried to keep things simple. To my left I placed a rectangular softbox, which was perpendicular to the large 6×6 silver reflector to my right. I raised the softbox up and tilted it to somewhere between 30-45 degrees down towards the subject while ensuring light bounced off the reflector for fill. This helped create directional light and keep nice shadows. I adjust the white balance and bring up the exposure by one stop. I tend to shoot a little dark just to have a little wiggle room. I then used a medium contract tone curve, and adjusted the sharpening and luminance. I then placed a small radial gradient on the model’s face to brighten it just a tad. I then adjusted the color by bringing down the reds, yellows, and oranges to make a nice skin tone. I then added a Green (shadow) / Blue (highlight) color grade with a 10-percent saturation level to the image. I went with the green/blue grade because I like how it affected the background and how the blue interacted with the skin tone, giving the image a cooler yet vintage feel. I then cropped the image and added a medium vignette.