Backlit portrait

[Xpres]

There was a thread a while ago about extreme backlight which got me wondering if I could get away with a potrtrait that was just backlit - as in no extra reflectors to fill in.
Although using a reflector would seem the obvious thing to do here it would reduce the range between subject and background and I wanted to try and maintain the strong backlight effect. So just an excercise really.
The subject was placed in front of some french windows.

This is how it came out of the camera - at least it's a picasa version which always seem to add magenta.




Some PP a crop and an elements frame later..



The lens was a planar 50/1.4 wide open.

All it proves, I think, is it's easy to rescue shots with PP and that reflectors are useful.

[Orio]

Xpres, in my humble opinion, the photo is over-exposed.

It seems to me that you have calibrated the exposure only on the face, but it's not good to do this in such extreme backlight, you need to average a bit with the background light. The right part of the window is totally burned and you can not repair that with post-work.

In any case I really like the expression and pose of the model.

[Richard_D]

Pose and expression are great but I think the post processing shows a little more than would be ideal. Great attempt.

[Xpres]

Thanks Orio and yes, you're right of course - and don't be so humble!

I did expose for the face at the expense of the window, but then I didn't need any detail from the window so it can blow as much as it likes - in fact I chopped the window detail from the histogram in PP. If I'd have altered the exposure on the face it would have under exposed and some detail/sharpness would be lost. If I'd given the face a little more then the backlight would have infringed too much on the face. It's tricky, hence my conclusions.
It's something I've not tried on purpose before.

[A G Photography]

In my opinion it depends on the effect you want to achieve. If you wanted a hi key portait (as the PP image turned out) the shot is underexposed, it should have been exposed on the model skin.
If you wanted to keep the background understandable you should have instead meter it and expose at 1 stop lighter at max.

For my taste I like the final PP shopt so I'd have gone with procedure #1