school pictures

Frog Lady

by way of introduction, my boys go to a small charter school, about 170 students total between 7-12th grades. Last spring, one of the parents asked if I could photograph their graduation ceremony, so I gave it a shot and the parents seemed reasonably pleased.

This summer, I was contacted by the school and asked if I could shoot the individual school pictures. Well, I hmm'ed and haw'ed and went out for a practice shoot (I normally do sports action shots) and was encouraged to go for it.

I shot the group this past Tues. I don't have much in the way of a portrait set up, so I decided to shoot outside, next to a grove of grapefruit trees for my back drop (they are the Grove School, so it seemed appropriate). I used my big white EZ Up with its silver lining and hung the white shade/wind panel on the sunny side. I hung two 100 W lights behind the portrait chair, one as a hair light and one lighting the trees a bit more. I also had my 430 EX flash, bounced off the EZ Up ceiling when in use (it was bright enough that I didn't need it later in the day).

Any way, I've posted a few examples below and the rest can be seen here (middle school campus) and here (high school campus). I used my Canon 40D w/ the 50 f/2.8. I would love some feed back on how you think they came out and what I might do different next time. (sorry about the big proof, they are live to the parents...)

Camera settings:
Aperature: f/4.0
100 ISO
shutter: 1/100 to 1/160
fec: -1 2/3 (bounced on silver screen)

Middle Schoolers:
1. (my younger son)


2.


3.


A few high schoolers:
4.


5.


6.


7. (my oldest son)


thanks for any advice/tips/words of encouragement :lust

C.

Qarik

over all pretty good. Could be my monitor but they all could use a touch more saturation.

Scott_Quier

The good:

• Very well exposed
• Background is nicely OOF so you got some pretty good separation between the subjects and the background
• The look sharp - you're going to get that when you use a prime:D
• Poses are good - for the most part the models are angled slightly away from the camera

However...

• They could all use a touch of a saturation boost - this can be fixed in post
• The light is a bit flat - nothing there to give much of a hint of depth. Can't fix that in post. I might suggest you do some research (google is your friend:D) on "loop lighting" - that would be time well spent.
• You've got a bright line of green through the middle of each shot - you can burn that a bit to fix it - no big deal

Overall - I think your clients will be quite pleased with these. They are sharp, clear, and your subjects appear to be quite relaxed and comfortable with you. Well done!

sweet caroline

Hey, check out my albums titled St. David's ( the preschool where I teach) and ACE (where my kids go to school).

http://carolinepoe.smugmug.com/ACE/575460

http://carolinepoe.smugmug.com/St%20Davids%20Day%20School

These were shot last year with a consumer level camera, but parents were pleased. I made some money to buy my Nikon D300, and I'll do more school pictures starting in a few weeks.

I like poses that aren't quite straight on.

Caroline
carolinepoe.smugmug.com

Frog Lady

Qarik and Scott,

thanks for stopping by and commenting. I can't believe how nervous I felt leading up to this, so glad to hear that others think they're ok as well

I'll play with the saturation and see what that does and I'll definately check out loop lighting. Tx for the tip.

Scott - by the bright green line, are you referring to the trees in the bkgd? If so, I think I see what you mean and it seems to be more obvious in the younger (ie, shorter) kids.

cheers,

C.

Scott_Quier

Frog Lady wrote:

Scott - by the bright green line, are you referring to the trees in the bkgd? If so, I think I see what you mean and it seems to be more obvious in the younger (ie, shorter) kids.

cheers,

C.

Yes, exactly.

Swartzy

Don't know if you shot a white card or calibration target for WB to start the sessions but that would be a big plus when doing it again. The color shot per shot is different in the same setting. This can be corrected in PS once you dial in the color using either curves, color balance layer or selective color, then simply drag that layer to each photo so they're all the same.

Frog Lady

Swartzy wrote:

Don't know if you shot a white card or calibration target for WB to start the sessions but that would be a big plus when doing it again. The color shot per shot is different in the same setting. This can be corrected in PS once you dial in the color using either curves, color balance layer or selective color, then simply drag that layer to each photo so they're all the same.

Hi Swartzy,

I thought some thing like that was possible... I actually had each student hold up an white envelope w/ their names written on it in black sharpie to help with ID'ing face to person w/ the thought that the envelope could be used to help w/ WB. But couldn't quite figure out how to transfer that info to the actual picture. Is there a tutorial for that some where?

tx for your comments and suggestion.

C.

joshhuntnm

overall good, as everyone else said. I like the tilted shoulders better than the square on.

Scott_Quier

Frog Lady wrote:

Hi Swartzy,

I thought some thing like that was possible... I actually had each student hold up an white envelope w/ their names written on it in black sharpie to help with ID'ing face to person w/ the thought that the envelope could be used to help w/ WB. But couldn't quite figure out how to transfer that info to the actual picture. Is there a tutorial for that some where?

tx for your comments and suggestion.

C.

Starting with Bridge, there are at least 3 ways that easily come to mind.

Method #1
Open the photos of the model (the one with the envelop and all the others) in ACR. Select the one with the envelop. Now, click on the "Select All" button. Now, select the WB tool (upper left, I think it's the second from the left). Click on the envelope. Now, if the envelop really is white (no guarantees on that one), you now have a good/decent WB set on all the photos. Done.

Method #2
Open all the photos of a particular model. Select the one with the WB target (the envelop) in ACR. Select the WB tool. Click on the WB target. Click on the "Select All" button. Click on the "Synchronize" button. In the dropdown control, select the option to synchronize only the WB. Click OK. Done.

Method #3
If you have a lot of photos, this is the preferred (fastest and least resource intensive) - Open just the photo of the model with the envelop in ACR. Select the WB tool. Click on the envelop. Click on the Done button. This should bring you back to Bridge. Select all the other photos of that model. Right-Click to get a context menu. About half-way down, there's an option for processing. A sub-option from there is something like "Previous Conversion". Select this. It will apply the WB correction from the envelop WB correction to the other selected photos.

Frog Lady

Scott_Quier wrote:

Starting with Bridge, there are at least 3 ways that easily come to mind.

Method #1
Open the photos of the model (the one with the envelop and all the others) in ACR. Select the one with the envelop. Now, click on the "Select All" button. Now, select the WB tool (upper left, I think it's the second from the left). Click on the envelope. Now, if the envelop really is white (no guarantees on that one), you now have a good/decent WB set on all the photos. Done.

Method #2
Open all the photos of a particular model. Select the one with the WB target (the envelop) in ACR. Select the WB tool. Click on the WB target. Click on the "Select All" button. Click on the "Synchronize" button. In the dropdown control, select the option to synchronize only the WB. Click OK. Done.

Method #3
If you have a lot of photos, this is the preferred (fastest and least resource intensive) - Open just the photo of the model with the envelop in ACR. Select the WB tool. Click on the envelop. Click on the Done button. This should bring you back to Bridge. Select all the other photos of that model. Right-Click to get a context menu. About half-way down, there's an option for processing. A sub-option from there is something like "Previous Conversion". Select this. It will apply the WB correction from the envelop WB correction to the other selected photos.

Cool! Thanks for the info. I tried method 3 and it is very easy. Now back to work

C.