Getting this stark effect

Hi Guys I'm looking for some post processing advice. I took some portraits for a friend's website and he likes the style on this site:

http://www.venturephotography.com/uk/gallery/

The photos I took were in natural outdoor light (not direct sunlight) and with a stone wall background so I don't think I am going to be able to get very close to this sort of thing!

But if anyone has any advice for achieving this very sharp and stark effect that would be amazing.

I'm using lightroom by the way.

A studio setting with a white backdrop, studio flash, lots of pictures and full exposure to make sure you get a high key effect.

Not keen on the style personally, but it does seem to be popular.

With your setup, I don't think you have much chance.
With PS you might isolate the subject and clip the rest, with skill this can be done properly. You are still left with over-exposing. Light angles would be much harder to emulate. Basically easier and better effect to just re-shoot.

Using lightroom and the Nik Software plugin Silver Efex pro you can get these effects and more without expensive physical studio setups.

With the adjustment brush in lightroom you can easily separate subject from background by separating contrast and clarity values and then getting a great B&W rendition from Silver Efex pro.

don't let the last two posters put you off

I think you would need a studio set-up, like John says, to get shots like that 'straight out of the camera", but I'm with smeggy on the PP front. The pics in my last couple of posted threads are not a million miles from the effect I think(:shock:

link
link

These pics were all taken against natural backgrounds (leaves, grass, twigs, bits of tree etc.) and I used a combination of Silver Efex Pro to convert to B/W (the burn edges function being particularly useful) and then lots of dodging and burning in PSE8...

Regards

Depending on your location, a local camera club just might have studio facilities for you to try this technique out for yourself.

Alternatively, hiring a small studio is not out of anyone's reach and help is often at hand.

Picassa ....free download!...they now have some effects which will do you nicely

Thanks for all the advice guys!

I have managed to get something together on lightroom that is doing the trick. In the end it's not really at all like the venture stuff (I think I do need some studio time if I was going to go all out) but I've managed to get the look of it being very highlighted but without losing the detail. Not managed to seperate the subjects from the background but I don't think it matters too much because the background is quite nice anyway.

I'll post some examples when I have got them exported.

Thanks again for the help!