How can I recreate this portrait look with soft light, shallow depth of field, and teal-toned grading?

Question

I’m trying to understand how to recreate a portrait style similar to Charles Hildreth’s work, specifically the exposure, color treatment, and overall finish rather than composition. In the examples I’m looking at, the backgrounds often have a cool teal cast while skin tones and eyes stay more natural, and there’s also a noticeable matte/low-contrast finish.

What lighting setup is likely being used for this kind of portrait? How important is the light quality compared with the post-processing? I’d also like to know what role lens choice, background selection, and masking/color grading might play in getting this look.

user51051 · Accepted Answer

Is there something important to say about the light in the portraits of Charles?

There is. There is no mastering of light here. It's always diffused natural light, either from an overcast sky or very large windows, with very little shadows. No risk taken, just the very basics and lots of color retouch in post. The catchlights in the eyes here and here show one or two white reflectors on the ground.

It looks to me like regular magazine material, no creativity, just pretty girls. It's easy to reproduce, and easy to forget.

Lens

Buy an expensive bokeh maker, not a lens. That is a 85 mm F/1.4 or perhaps a Canon 85 F/1.2 with a full frame camera.

Location

Choose a background color contrasting with your model hair color, playing with complementary colors, and enhance them (too much) in post.

Retouch

Overexpose slightly the skintones to cut out the skin job and automatically vanish the skin texture,
Add a faded effect to dilute the blacks as in vintage neo-retro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K9n0q9j3r0
Add a split toning effect, but, like, really split: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Oa2YHMxxoE
If you feel fancy, add a bit of color grading (it's more or less the same thing in more subtle): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH2zj1sTUak
Smoothen the skin with split frequency (not sure if he is using it though, because the skin is usually lighten from behind and overexposed, so it doesn't look necessary): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldhG9fmgC7o
Run the extra mile (maybe ?) with the dodge & burn to finish the skin (this involves real skills though, presets users are out of the game): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeEXY2kIpVo
Or maybe just buy his presets, it's always the same tricks anyway : http://www.charleshildreth.com/tutorials

I'm sorry to be harsh, but being experienced, I see this kind of pictures every day, it looks always the same and I don't know why someone would like to reproduce it. Right know, just from memory, I can cite Maxim Guselnikov, Sean Archer, Lisa Holloway, Jessica Drossin, Helena Shumilova as copycats of this one. See ? It's crowded. There is nothing to envy, nothing to copy, just big strings. They will vanish with the trend they are following.

You may search your inspiration elsewhere, maybe in museums or on The Art of Photograpy.

How can I recreate this portrait look with soft light, shallow depth of field, and teal-toned grading?

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