Liz Ashley – Bedroom Set

I’ve wanted to do this for a long time; bedroom set with shallow DOF.  Focus on the eyes only;  bokeh cross the rest of the body.

Ideally, this could have been done easily in a real bedroom with large north facing window; where the soft daylight would cast a very even light across the subject.  But I don’t have the luxury of time to move Ashley from the studio.  So I improvised by bringing a duvet from home, spread it over white seamless paper; and voila! instant bedroom.

The light (inside a large softbox, emulating window) is place right next to Liz, to camera right, slightly angled down.  To achieve the desired focus on eyes and bokeh, I dialed down the power to almost minimum.  I chose to go with my trusty 85mm f/1.4D to create the smooth bokeh.  I was able to reliably focus on the eye all the way down to f/2.2; which was good enough to get decent bokeh.

When I shot the picture, I had black and white in mind.  But while editing, I decided to run it through Pastel filter from Nik instead.  Either way would have been great I suppose.  What do you think?