Here's a recent session with one of my daughters. The biggest technical challenge, other than making her wear her pads, was that of her height. Without skates she's about 5' 10" which presents a problem in a small area with a low ceiling. It becomes quite a challenge photographing certain angles while trying to stay on the backdrop. So, to make it easier, I had her bend slightly like she was just finishing her workout and trying to catch her breath. These images are the first in a series of skating portraits. Next, we have to do the outdoor portraits.
The lighting set up consisted of two side lights and one overhead light to illuminate the face. The lights were flagged in order to keep them from spilling on the background.
The goal was to try to make the skating pads, which she's not happy about wearing, look stylish. (Yes, I know those of you who grew up like me, didn't have pads and probably survived the jump in the grass to save your hide trick many times. However, I've become the crazy dad who bellows, " No pads, No skating.")
I hope you like the pictures. If you do, or have questions about the details of the images please let me know.
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Stephanie wanted a portrait of her and Joshua, so we set up the lights and got to work. Technically there are several things going on here worth discussing briefly. This is meant to show just a few of the details that go into making a portrait.Lighting, Posing, Clothing, and Retouching.
This was a 3 light set up plus one reflector. A main light, a hair light, fill light and a reflector. The light was adjusted so that there was a 1 stop difference between the main and the fill light. This adjustment along with the reflector control the contrast of the image. The contrast is the difference between the lighter and darker parts of the image. The hair light was used to separate Stephanie's dark hair from the background so you could distinguish between the two.
Joshua was posed in the classic basic pose. That is, his head and body are facing the main light and his head is perpendicular to his slightly angled shoulders. His height was also adjusted to place his lips near the height of Stephanie's eyes. He is also posed sitting straight at the camera while Stephanie is standing on his left shoulder. Here, she is actually in the classic basic pose.
Stephanie, when seated, is in the classic feminine pose. Her body is turned away from the main light while her head is turned back towards the light and tipped slightly toward her higher shoulder. She is also in the same pose while standing on Joshua's right shoulder.
Stephanie and Joshua were trying to stay in the same tone while picking there clothes and also trying to avoid busy patterns. That way, the main emphasis of the portrait stays on the face. Some corrective steps were taken to assure that the emphasis was on the face. Such as, a closer camera view and bringing Stephanie's hair forward over her shoulders.
Retouching consisted of several levels. It began with simple contrast adjustment and included skin softening, eye touch up and skin touch up.
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Everybody usually says that motorcycles are more dangerous than cars. Well, I guess they are if you ride them, but during this portrait session the cars proved to be more dangerous. These images were made near the Alton bridge during the middle of the day. I used to ride on this particular road a lot and I don't remember there being as much traffic as there was during this session.
In order to get these pictures I had two edge lights set up behind the subject connected with a power cord. The main light was set up on a stand with a boom just above Mike's head. Every time a car started to come I had to move all the lights and Mike had to get out of the way. Once the cars were gone then we had to reposition, remeter the lights and try again. This whole process took well over an hour.
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Returning from our first camping trip in July I looked at all of the pictures taken and boy was I a little disappointed. There either weren't enough pictures taken or there were too many taken of stuff like walking sticks. There was also the problem of not really knowing how to use my wife's point and shoot digital camera.
Well, during our second camping trip I made sure to prepare...I actually read my wife's point and shoot camera manual. I found and dusted off an old film point and shoot camera and gave instructions to the kids to PHOTOGRAPH EVERYTHING that moves. Well, as a result we looked like the stereo typical Japanese tourist group. There were bodies running everywhere when the big yellow van stopped to take pictures. After all of the appropriate taking pictures of each other taking pictures was done, the troops set off to document the daily events. Well, I'm happy to report that we had a huge amount of pictures to sort through, but we also did much better documenting our vacation.
Also of note....I really have a renewed appreciation for Film. This picture was taken with a 15 year old pentax point and shoot camera using 400 ISO Fuji Reala film. The only thing done to it was raise the contrast just a tiny bit. I had it developed and scanned at Costco. I think I'll shoot more film in the future. I noticed that I have more keepers shooting film than with digital because I take the time to slow down and think.
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This picture was taken using a Nikon D70. I saw the setting sun filtering into our cabin and ran for the camera. I used Lightroom to add a slight vignette to the picture.
Caleb and Joshua grabbed their airsoft gear and let me make a some portraits of them.
Usually these guys don't like this sort of thing, but they suffered through it like champs. I used a three light setup and one very small soft box. The light on the right of the image was gelled to give an amber appearance like the sun. The only thing that was edited in the images was some very minor skin touch up.
Thanks for looking.
EJ
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