A-M-P wrote:
on camera flash enough said. I'm not sure why you are complicating yourself by bringing a whole bunch of extra lights

+1 I thought the whole point of the Terry Richardson look was to make them look like they were shot by paparazzi. They have this disconcerting element to them that comes from really harsh light shot in bad conditions. That's their charm, really. Shoot with your pop up flash, if you have one, and make sure to blow it out, up the contrast and drop the saturation a bit.

There's always a slightly glamorous element to his photos as well, and I think that comes mostly from the pretty people he shoots. Though if I ever see him in person and he gives me that smirk and a thumbs up, I may have to choke him.

Zack Zoll wrote:
As much as I hate Richardson's style, if you want to work in a certain section of the market, it is something that you absolutely need to be able to do.  The jobs are out there, and the clients want to pay somebody to produce TR-type work at lower than TR prices.  If the check is getting written anyway then it may as well have your name on it, right?

Pretty much on point here.

Francisco Castro wrote:
Looking for more technical guidance rather than "you should have done this that"  I know plenty of photographers who get proper exposure right off the bat without a lightmeter so whether I use one or not is not the biggest concern relative to what I am trying to achieve based on my
Okay. So I guess being a dick is the path you've chosen. Dude, I was sincerely pointing you in the right direction. I didn't give you a "should have" answer to your question. I gave you a straight up answer on how to get the same results. Also, you didn't list a light meter in your list of gear so I thought I would point out that you need one. And thirdly, I don't specially care if other photographers get their lights correct the first time out; clearly you're not one of those guys so learing how to use a light meter is in your best interest and yes, lighting should be your biggest concern.

Now, if you want a step by step diagram on how to get the shots you want, you can just go play with yourself because clearly you have no idea how to deal with people who are genuinely trying to help you out.

And to answer your question in the last post, "why am I not getting the results I intend". Simple. You're too stuborn to listen, and your big ego is getting in the way of your lighting.

Everyone else have been quite helpful, where you just dwell on one thing. Stop making the assumptions that I have some massive ego as I do not. I was simply crowd sourcing an answer - not an opinion and for the most part you've just given an opinion (rude one at that). So please take a chill pill, get your undies out of the massive bunch they are in and simply just dust your hands of the situation as everyone else is being helpful here but you.

Thank you to everyone else. I am going to go set up and try this stuff now I think I got the hang of it.

GlamourPhotoChicago wrote:
to get the Terry Richardson look... get ugly... and rape your models?

he typically uses a a non pro camera, camera flash... sometimes a cheap ring light modifier. i don't know. right now that guy puts me off so badly... with all the raping, the shitty pictures, i don't get it.

Let me preface - I too think Terry is a total scumbag that should be wiped off the face of the earth...but that doesn't change the fact (as someone noted earlier) - people still want his "style" of shooting without having the nasty Terry side effects as we all know he has...

To put it generally, and everyone has been very helpful in explaining/describing how to achieve it - I want that old, hard light look.   Does anyone not remember the days of the hazy but cool Polaroid/Instamatic camera photos?

BOYWITHCAMERA wrote:
I wasn't expecting this much text in a thread with a title containing anything "American Apparel" and "lighting."  Kinda dumbfounded to be honest.  I know the guy that shoots a lot of their ads and it's really not this complicated.  Think on-camera flash.

YUP. Either the on-board flash or a hot-shoe flash will do. Put your model close to the wall and just shoot. It's so easy. Don't over think it. You can even edit in photoshop so that the brightness/exposure/gamma bright levels are turned up to make the photos less contrast-y to look like a "vintage" instagram filter. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE this style, but it's not as complicated as you guys are making it.

Zack Zoll wrote:
I hate to say it, but looking like TR is in right now.  I have a love/hate relationship with Paper magazine ... an old girlfriend got me a subscription a while back, and I just got used to having it around.  It's a good tool to understand what's cool with my hipster photo students, and it really helps me to understand what they want to do, and to be able to reach out to them and teach them just that.

But God is it painfully ironic.  The whole magazine DRIPS hipster.  And the worst part is that almost every issue, there's at least one editorial or interview where somebody talks about how much they hate hipsters, Brooklyn, or both.  For a group of people so well-versed in irony, they never seem to see the problem with this

And you know, almost every issue looks like it was shot largely by Richardson.  I can't tell you how many times I've checked the credits to see if it was him - it hasn't been yet, but it always looks like it is.

Terry Richardson is a hipster.  People that hire him are hipsters, or want to be hipsters.  And I've got nothing against hipsters on the whole, and depending on who you ask I might even be one.  The thing to remember is that that whole subculture is just marketing.  The point isn't to be unique:  the point is to impress people with similar tastes, and pass it off as uniqueness.  To do that, you have to ascribe to the same set of values as anyone else in that subculture.  A businessman isn't going to impress clients with his Rolex watch if that client doesn't find those things impressive.  Similarly, a hipster isn't going to impress his friends with his latest thrift store find if his friends don't share those tastes.

As much as I hate Richardson's style, if you want to work in a certain section of the market, it is something that you absolutely need to be able to do.  The jobs are out there, and the clients want to pay somebody to produce TR-type work at lower than TR prices.  If the check is getting written anyway then it may as well have your name on it, right?

Exactly.

A-M-P wrote:
on camera flash enough said. I'm not sure why you are complicating yourself by bringing a whole bunch of extra lights

+1

use a point and shoot....

Francisco Castro wrote:
You didn't like one of the most important pieces of equipment for getting just the right exposure. A light meter. Learning to use one properly will help you control your lighting, and minimize the number of test shots you take.

For the Terry Richardson look--- avoid any modifiers that diffuse your light source. Point light source is what you need, not a source that creates a soft edged shadow.

A light meter is an outdated tool that is not needed if you are not shooting film. A meter can not show you what the LCD on your camera can and the meter readings mean nothing, the only thing that matters what your image looks like. Meter readings are for film or to tell someone else how to duplicate your work.

They were essential when using film now they are all but obsolete for people that shoot digital in my opinion. Especially if you use LR and Photoshop and shoot in raw.

Nico Simon Princely wrote:

A light meter is an outdated tool that is not needed if you are not shooting film. A meter can not show you what the LCD on your camera can and the meter readings mean nothing, the only thing that matters what your image looks like. Meter readings are for film or to tell someone else how to duplicate your work.

They were essential when using film now they are all but obsolete for people that shoot digital in my opinion. Especially if you use LR and Photoshop and shoot in raw.

A light meter is not essential to shooting film. I studio I barely used it. I would setup
and generally not be more than a top off. I would shoot Polaroids to check equipment and exposure.... mainly equipment. I would have used a meter if Polaroids were not essential to make sure the camera was working fine.

Nico Simon Princely wrote:
A light meter is an outdated tool that is not needed if you are not shooting film. A meter can not show you what the LCD on your camera can and the meter readings mean nothing, the only thing that matters what your image looks like. Meter readings are for film or to tell someone else how to duplicate your work.

They were essential when using film now they are all but obsolete for people that shoot digital in my opinion. Especially if you use LR and Photoshop and shoot in raw.

While this is somewhat off topic, your idea that the LCD is the final word or exposing files is laughable. 'the only thing that matters'  Really…? I prefer to look at the file on a high quality monitor, not the lcd. I have found that in generally practice shooting an image that looks perfect on an LCD looks boring and flat in the real file. LCDs are especially weak in rendering light fall-off. Might not be important to you, but I have found more than a few times that it is important.

Light meters, or more importantly strobe meters, are for more than exposure. I use them more for lighting balance.

Dan Howell wrote:

While this is somewhat off topic, your idea that the LCD is the final word or exposing files is laughable. 'the only thing that matters'  Really…? I prefer to look at the file on a high quality monitor, not the lcd. I have found that in generally practice shooting an image that looks perfect on an LCD looks boring and flat in the real file.

Light meters, or more importantly strobe meters, are for more than exposure. I use them more for lighting balance.

Even though I tell newbs at the camera club, not to spend $200 - $300 on a Lightmeter, I am a proponent of a lightmeter for studio work. If you want justifications then check out Tony Corbell.

If you are using the LCD to tell you exposure, then I am not sure what to say. The LCD for framing and composition ok, but exposure??? Histogram for exposure maybe. Everytime I depend on the LCD, because lets face it it is quicker, I spend more time in post fixing things, than fix I had done it right in the first place by metering properly.

A lightmeter is no longer essential with in camera histograms, but it is very far from being useless.

DFTBA Photography  wrote:
I have two Einstein 640 strobes, an octabox, umbrellas and a big parabolic.  I have an upcoming studio shoot that has a plain floor and white wall.  In the past I have attempted to get that AA/'Terry Richardson' style lighting using strobe as well as flashguns and just always seem to blow out the model in my attempt to get a white wall etc.

Any advice, lighting diagrams etc anyone can share to help me achieve what I am trying to do?

Thx!

So, here is my idea as to how T.R. gets his signature look. After watching some of his behind the scenes on YouTube.

On camera flash, very close to the lens.
He is using the flash on manual at full power.
If you divide the guide number by the aperture, you get the distance for your subject.
He then overexposes the flash by opening the aperture by 1/3 or 2/3 of a stop.
The result is his signature look.

Here is my attempt at it:



My settings:

ISO 100, f/14 and 7.5 feet distance from the subject.
I divided my SB-800 flash's guide number of 125 by f/16 and got 7.8 feet. I overexposed the flash by opening the aperture to f/14 and I got this image. I think I should have overexposed by 2/3 or 1 full stop on the aperture to get a better result. That would have been an aperture of f/13 or f/11.

TheRobertHanley wrote:
How did you have your flash setup onto the camera?  You can barely see shadow on the background in Terry's but it doesn't look that close to the lens in his videos.

TR on camera flash "look" varies quite a bit...sometime you see a lot of shadow...sometimes you dont