First Family Portraits

scottV

These are the first family portraits that I have taken outside of my own family. Friends of the wife who graciously volunteered to be my guinea pigs. Brutal c&c requested & appreciated.
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Scott_Quier

Brutal - you asked for it....

It's hard to screw it up with such a beautiful family, but ....

1. Hot, very hot. It appears your fill seems to be about right for your key, but your aperture is a bit too open, maybe a whole stop? Fill needs to be from a more elevated position as it appears to be lighting them from about eye-level. Higher would probably be better. I'm not too sure about the crop either - you've cut off the outside arms of both Mom and Dad.
2. Again, you cut off the Dad's arm. I would also burn the hot spot above Mom's head and also of the blown grass near the bottom. You need some fill to open up the shadows in their eye sockets.
3. Centered. Not digging the lens flair.
4. There's something strange going on with Dad's skin tones. I note in #2 that his face and arms are nearly the same tone. Here, there's a distinct difference.
5. This is the pick of litter, even with the blown highlights in her hair. Love the expressions and the sense of fun. This is one that all will cherish. I would probably re-crop it to remove some of the empty space from the top.
6. Good start. Fill light is a little close to them - demonstrated by the light fall-off between Mom and Son. I'm thinking you probably need to nearly double the fill light to subject distance to bring that more under control. You cut off Mom's knee and Dad's foot. Pull back a bit further and make sure you get all of them in the frame. Pulling back will also allow for different print crops (4x6, 8x10, etc).
7. Mom's into the shot - not too sure about the guys though. Technically, you're too close - see the last sentence in the last comment. And, what's going on with Son's legs. Is he sitting on a fence rail? If so, need to turn those legs to one side or the other. Lower right corner, we see just a bit of Dad's hand. Need to either include all of it or none of it. Need to figure a way to knock down the huge bright areas behind their heads. Faster shutter speed would be my first thought.

Swartzy

One other suggestion...losing the additional headroom will improve the overall compositions....it's cool once in a while but you may find it more appealing getting the eyes in the upper third of the frame. Shoot a tad looser as Scott refers to and will easily be cropped after the fact (trust me, I sometimes shoot too tight, especially in studio then kick myself afterwards) :D:D

scottV

damn, you guys are brutal!
just playin
thanks for the input. The hardest part was directing and posing them and I was probably rushing it. oh well, practice practice practice.

neastguy

I'm not good enough to offer suggestions, but they all look great to me.. only thing i question is your cropping.. which has already been mentioned... real nice job though..:D

Scott_Quier

scottV wrote:

damn, you guys are brutal!
just playin
thanks for the input. The hardest part was directing and posing them and I was probably rushing it. oh well, practice practice practice.

Brutal - well you asked for it (yes, I saw your ":D")

If you ask people around here you will find that I don't tend to sugar-coat it. I try to be honest and, if I know how, provide hints on how to fix it for the next time. I didn't have to try so hard this time

As for the rushing it - SLOW DOWN. This gives you time to think between steps. As far as your clients know, you are working at a steady pace and they don't see you concentrating - they just see you moving at steady sure pace - that will provide your clients huge boosts of confidence that they did, in fact, contract with the right photographer. Just remember that duck - all calm on the surface but paddling like H311 under the water just to try to keep up.

PremiumMalt

Scott_Quier wrote:

Brutal - well you asked for it (yes, I saw your ":D")

If you ask people around here you will find that I don't tend to sugar-coat it. I try to be honest and, if I know how, provide hints on how to fix it for the next time. I didn't have to try so hard this time

As for the rushing it - SLOW DOWN. This gives you time to think between steps. As far as your clients know, you are working at a steady pace and they don't see you concentrating - they just see you moving at steady sure pace - that will provide your clients huge boosts of confidence that they did, in fact, contract with the right photographer. Just remember that duck - all calm on the surface but paddling like H311 under the water just to try to keep up.

Great lol.

I thoughts the pics were good but what the hell do I know. Scott, thanks for your CC. I will use these points as well.

VayCayMom

Looks like a great location, a nice job creating variety.
Mom's shirt looks weird in #1, the light bouncing off of it, the twist of her waist and the direction of her chest points right to her son's head, bothers me, that is just a pose issue that most likely was not at all noticeable in your camera. If she had a smaller bust it most likely would be a non issue.
I think these are great all in all.

bauerman

The REAL judge of success of any shoot like this is not the crowd on the forum; its the people in the shots. What did they think?

bandgeekndb

Although I agree with most of what Scott said earlier, I'm going to disagree on the lens flare pic (#3).

I'm normally a hater of lens flare, but this pic does it for me. I agree with Scott that number 6 is the best of the bunch, but the lens flare looks ok in this one. In my very non-professional, semi-amateur opinion, it looks great. I certainly wouldn't take it as the ONLY shot from the session, but certainly one to consider.

Just my two cents. I agree with others above as well, let us know what the family thinks of these! Although a pro's opinion helps a great deal, if you can pull it off so the family thinks they're great, think of how pleased they'll be in the future when you're even better!

~Nick