I have never had a favorite photographer before until I found David Hills work.
and I have read all over the net about him.. and I have seen in so many forums people even argue and I mean argue very rude to each other about how David hill edits his shots..

Some say HDR. some say photoshop plugins . and it goes on and on. I even seen during a interview David hill will not give out his secrets at all..

So I have really studied his shots with my little knowledge of photography lol

And im thinking its more how he lights a shoot before he even takes a shot.
because I have tried everything possible I can think of in photoshop and HDR. and it dont even come close to his work lol

So this time I tried lighting as the main key on the photo. and i think im getting closer to his look.
I used the sun as a back light. and one flash. off to the right.. then a work light to the left to soffen the shadow. and then I had a work light under the truck firing up through the motor

then I took the image and tone mapped it a little at a time. in other words. I would tone map it slight.. then save then bring it back in and tone map slight.. because tonemapping all at once. seems to add a lot of noise to the image..

but anyway this is my david hill try and I would like to know if it looks like im on the right page or not :-)
thanks for your time
Miranda

A lot of that stylized look does have to do with lighting setup and how its used effectively.  Most people would  think  that flash or fill lighting would not be needed during the day,  but  at times it can have a dramatic effect and help balance out images or be used to make subjects POP out from the background..

I'm just getting into using my wireless flash for this very thing.

I think you have the look pretty close...its all about experimenting and digital sure enables us to do just that.  Keep it up!

Je

I used fill light when I had my own wedding photgraphy business.
I only used fill when it was a last resort so not to burn out the dress but on occaisions it was required.
I would manually set the flash to maybe 1/4 or 1/2 of the camera exposure settings.The use of a white reflector works well as it is not so severe as flash or can be used in conjunction with flash.
Have to say your shot is very very impressive.
Maybe rather than copy david Hill you should now develop your own style..you ave a pretty good base to start from.
Eddie

think im going to have to go buy lights again today :-)

is there a place I can learn theatrical lighting. like they do on movie sets?

that the level of lighting I want to learn now.. im finding photoshop really has its limits. if its not in the image already faking it in photoshop just really kills the image I think. and I think that has been my problem in the past. I have relied on photoshop way to much :-)

here is my first test shot of trying david hill using a back light behind my son.. I did one shot without the back light and he blended so much into the ugly green cabnets lol
so this one I just tried a back light firing up behind him. and it really cut him out the image :-)

I had to laugh at your shot of "Checking her out"..were those people real.
Actually lighting is the answer to nearly everything..if there wasnt light there would be nothing.
But then the quality of the image doesnt alwyas show thru in photoshop and it needs tweaks.
I dont know of any lighting tutorials but in my own very very humble opinion keeping it simple may be better than trying to haul studio lights every where. 
I remember one guy in photography using seven lights for a protrait shot..why I wondered.
Plus if you use a lot of lights by the time you set them up the subject starts getting pretty bored whilst you try to see which light is cancelling out the other.
With fewer lights you may get a far more dramatic effect.
The shot of your son works well because there are not too many lights.Did he volunteer or did you nail him to the seat ;-)

lol you cant tell in his face hes say "mom enough already" lol
all my boys now run when they see me pick up a camera lol
soon as i yell one of their names they yell NO!! and walk the other way lol
so the trick is now.. I say pose or no motocross all day hahahaha

when I had lights before I always used one light.. but not so much because thats the look i liked
truth was if I had 3 lights going. then I would end up with 3 shadows in 3 different directions off one person lol

and to me that took away any natural look I could even hope for lol
no such thing as 3 suns lol

so im sure im going to run into that again... I love shadows more then i do light.. but 3 shadows no way hahaha

Getting late here but when you use more than one light have them at different power settings.
So say have your main light at full power..have a fill light at maybe 1/2 or 1/4 power.

Or remember the "Inverse Square Law"

I think your saying what the hell is he on about :-)

It is this

"When a subject is illuminated by a source of light..if your double the distance of the light from the subject only 1/4 strength of the light will fall on the subject"

Yeah I was clever once.

Its a pretty technical term to say "if the power of the light cant be lowered...move the light further away" 

You can also use things like bits of card or curtains hung on something to stop light falling onto certain areas..think of what happens when you move a lamp shade on a table lamp and bits that were lit then go into shade.

You can do a lot of things without spending a fortune..unless you are very rich and cash is no object.

 Eddie

"I think your saying what the hell is he on about :-)"

LOL hahahaha no im thinking im learning something lol
and you are very clever I might add lol

ok im going to play with this.. and see what I come up with.. if i still get 3 shadows we will have to have a long talk about this clever stuff lol

If you are getting shadows try moving the lights.

In portraits I would usually use three lights..two of them front lights and one used as a hair light.

I will try to explain the front lights.

From the camera point of view looking at the subject I would have one light at full power in front and to the right of the model.

I would have and the second light in front and to the left of the subject set at half power.

The hair light I would generally have been behind the model off to one side set at about half of 1/4 power.

This way any shadows would fall to the side of the model and not be seen in the photograph.

The hair light in England was called Rembrandt lighting...if you look at one of his paintings there is nearly always highlights on the hair.

In America it was called Hollywood lighting..well it would be wouldn't it :-)

This was pretty much a basic set up for a studio shot.

If I did this out side ( They got posh and called this environmental portraits ) then I would check the the reflected light from the subject ( in those days we used light meters ) but you can just do it by checking the camera readings and if there were shadows or the subject was back lit I would set my flash down about 1/2 power or even less. 

If I had an assistant with me I would use a white or gold reflector instead of the flash..was never a lover of flash.

I used to do some lovely photos using just window light.Sit the subject by a window and pose the model then shoot across the window so you only got the subject and not any burn out with the window or light outside.I would use a white reflector to lift any shadows on the model or maybe just let that side of the model fade to shadow.

Hope this may help in one way or another.
This may all be totally irrelavant to what you are aiming for but may help at times.
Eddie

I am not a fan of the very stylized "photos", at least not on the same page with photos without the painted in look of tonemapping and HDR variations done heavilyi.  Still, in your photo of the truck, I know it originated at a photo but see it as a different sort of rendering. I am more comfortable taking "that look" as a different form of presentation for which have no name...a look beyond "photo" yet not painted cartoon cell. To me, this is almost a Norman Rockwell look with more edginess to detail added in.

You did well on this one, I believe and your multiple lighting worked with the truck shot.  I have difficulty knowing if it was more tonemapping or lighting or what since all is blended very well.

In my play with lights, I have often done as Eddie mentions and used reflectors.  In one shoot of Christmas decorations in a ladies crowded home my wife held a white foam core board for me while I managed the small strobe of camera and worked the camera.  Surprising how well a reflector works to fill and balance the light, with strobe or sun.  A piece of sheer fabric can cut down the harshness of direct sun, having tried that only once  but it worked well on a set up shoot.         Tom. 

Thanks for the light tips im going to be trying them today.. finally got all new lights again :-)
ill post in here my try and please dont just say nice shot tell me the truth on the lighting lol

one thing I dont like about posting in the gallery is I can post a littler box and everyone will say oh awesome shot and i have the exact same litter box lol

and I cant learn anything from that.. i really need to learn this stuff so please be open and honest
just like Ton was about how he feels about HDR and all.. I love that ;-)
Miranda

You are doing well and some good advice.. Light is our only paint and as such is worth study and the relationships between placement and distance do match things like fstops which work on the same formula.. Then you can just take a look at the work of The Paintings of Johannes Vermeer mesmerize the eye and then know you know nothing!!

Miranda, having said what I thought in some directions, looking at what you have done you do not have the edginess I find displeasing...not at all.  Your touch is more gentle and true to the image.  The first two you posted seem to have more emphasis on small detail than the later ones.  The three just above of your son are quite pleasing in lighting. The first to me is simply a different mood than the next two which seem to "feel" like they are in the same mood or in the same room of emotion while the first is darker and projects a different view altogether somewhat more distant from the person there. Oh my, hush my ramblings!.  

I am glad you are experimenting here..I will learn something and maybe draq out my two studio lights, a reflector or two and maybe add a backlight...some time when there is actually room to do that here properly.  Please keep this up and let us know your sets with the lighting, good and bad, joys and frustrations.            Go for it.      Tom.

Hi Miranda
The style of lighting you are trying to emulate uses a lot of lights, but the basics are as per Eddies excellent post on a lighting set up. I think Dave Hill uses the basics, then adds lots of accent lights to increase the contrast ratio and add drama to the image.  The accent lights are very directional so only lighting the selected part of the scene which the photographer chooses.  With this in mind your first two images are closest .
In the newer postings, with your lights, the first image has the contrast ratio, but not the general lighting, the second is mid way and the third a lower contrast with more even light.  Watch out for light areas closer to the camera than the subjects face - illustrated in the third image where the hand is better lit than the subjects face. This will occur because light loses its strength very rapidly the further it travels.  Something only slightly closer to the camera , but in the same light, will appear twice as bright as something slightly further away from the lens.   
The best way to learn is to master the basics, and then lots of experimenting and being critical of the results you get.
To reinforce what Eddie has already said on a basic lighting set up here is a link to illustrate the technique in graphical terms what has been said in words above.
http://www.mediacollege.com/lighting/

hth
Richard

Thanks, Richard.   A fine link.      Tom.

P.S..  The very few studio light photos I have shot were set up using my flash meter, a standard hand incidental/reflected light meter with ability to measure flash from the strobes and compare easily to set lighting power used.   I suppose with experiment you could get away without the costly meter but it sure makes things easier and quicker.

wow thank you so much guys for s much info :-) you guys are the best ;-)
I will reply to this better I didnt get home till 4am last night so im running on little sleep lol

the part I always have huge problem with like i said before is shadows going in different directions
if you look at the one with sun glasses he has 2 nose shadows lol

i know now how to fix that thanks to you guys and your tips.. but the problem i have is
when you do a shoot you cant really see the 2 nose shadows when looking in the LCD of the camera

you dont discover this until you bring it to the computer.. so what do you do if your on a location shooting a model and you get home and surprise 2 nose shadows lol that could be a mess

in my LCD everything looks great always lol

Have you got a portable dvd player ?
Plug your camera into it via the video in socket.
Voila - you got a better lcd than on the back of any camera.

or

Go fully tethered and shoot using a laptop or netbook (if it has a connection). 

How do I shoot using a laptop?

i dont have a portable dvd player but i have a spare very small TV

You can shoot tethered using software such as Canon EOS utility or perhaps other makes have similar. There is other software such as Capture One Pro but that tends to be expensive as used by professionals.

Download images to a netbook and view them - but not in real time.

Connect a dvd to video out on camera and video in on dvd player and it is just like the lcd on your camera. You won't get a pic on the camera lcd but on the dvd screen.

hey my camera has a cable that came with it and i just took it and pluged it in to the tv and took a picture and it shows up in real time on the tv I can see it perfect lol wow thats awesome

thank you so much even lets me see the histogram.. i shoot with that the most because in my old age looking at photos on a LCD is impossible lol

lol - Glad you found that

Your TV is not very portable - I thought you wanted something to shoot on location with. The idea is the same though . That is exactly what you would get with a portable dvd player (make sure it has a video in socket ).

yes I do but this is a very small TV if I had to guess I would say the screen is about 6 or 7 inches long

and its not heavy at all.. just wish the cable from the camera to TV was longer keeps me on a short leash ... and anyone that knows me knows i dont like being on a short leash lol

Can the TV run on rechargeable batteries or has it got to be plugged into a main supply ?

its the kind ya see in campers looks like cig lighter and regular outlet.. dont see a battery spot
but then again im a female.. ya know cant set a clock on a VCR kind lol

the screen is small but the TV is very long.. and the photos look like they have a tone of red in them on the TV.. but I only want it to see where shadows fall to avoid double shadows and such