Rf Cookbook by Jen Bidner
Craig Kienast’s Portrait Art—Fantasia

Portrait artist Craig Kienast specializes in spirited portraits, such as the senior shown here. He offers a special “fantasia” portrait package that combines a photographic image with a digital, artistic representation of reality straight from his imagination.

“ I consider capturing the spirit of another human being a privilege,” explains Kienast. “I try to make each portrait more than a still life by capturing emotion.”

The senior pictured here was a referral client who traveled a long distance for the shoot. The session included prom dress images, classic portraits and even a few shots with the family’s pet raccoon.

The lighting setup was fairly simple. The main light was Photogenic with a Larson 6x8-foot softbox. A Larson 72-inch Reflectasol was placed about three feet from the subject for fill light. The background was a Photo Showcase Blue Abstract canvas, which was turned red by gelling it with a Photogenic flash head.

The image was shot digitally with a Canon 1DS and an EOS 28–105mm lens. The photographer then used “a ton of Photoshop” to manipulate the background and perfect the image. The Liquid Smear feature of Corel Painter software was also applied.

The outer “matting frame” was done digitally using Photoshop Layers , and picking up the background. The final image was matted in a mahogany wood frame.

Kienast’s studio has been 100 percent digital for the past three years. He uses the Canon Zoom Browser software to create proof sheets for his clients. He also offers the incentive of a 5 percent discount if they do soft viewing (no printed proofs). The increased sales due to soft viewing more than offsets the 5 percent discount. “People buy on emotion,” he explains, “And their emotion is highest when they initially view the images at the studio.”

Craig Kienast’s studio is in Clear Lake, Iowa, however he services clients in New York, Nashville, and other cities across the USA. His images can be viewed on his web site at www.photock.com. He also sells products to help train professional photographers, including an educational CD on lighting entitled “Seeing the Light.”

INGREDIENTS
• Camera: Canon EOS 1Ds
• Lens: EOS 28–105mm
• Lighting: Photogenic heads, Larson softboxes and reflectors
• Software: Photoshop CS, and Corel Painter
• Background: Photo Showcase Blue Abstract