When working on a catalog shoot for a clothing manufacturer where I was asked to shoot over 30 + dresses for the day. I had the pleasure to work with makeup and hair artist Teri Groves. She is one of my favorite artist to work with because she is always pleasant to be around and is superb at her job.
We were well into the shoot that day and Teri was making some hair and makeup changes when I observed a new look on model Carrie Stoupe with her hair up for an evening dress. I thought “That look would make for a great head shot if I take one now”. My lighting was set in such a way that I was very confident that I could get a close-up head shot without moving any of my lights as to not interfere with all the next set of dress’s we had to shoot.
My lighting setup was with a lighted (Two umbrellas) white backdrop with two very large soft boxes one on each side of the model, one box is a bit brighter than the other about ½ a stop. Now this would normally give a shadow on each side of a face (Cross light) but I had another light on a boom stand that was position to light up the faces of the models to stop the shadows from happing. It was placed in such a way that it would not show up on the clothes as flat light and or It could also end up making a hot spot.
So, moving in (Zoom) would not be an issue, the back lights were also bouncing off the white backdrop and would wrap around the model for a slight highlight. As you can see in the head shot my lighting is very pleasing, later after the shoot I put the image into Adobe Photoshop® and desaturated the photo so it would stand out a bit more to the viewer with strong blacks. The sharpness also helps to push the image out to the viewer with a snap in the focus. My trick here is always be looking when your shooting you never know when the magic of photography will show up.