Urban Cowgirl -- the rest

adbsgicom

There were two shoots, one early in the back yard, and another toward dusk at a nearby park. Everything was done w/ two flashes using the E-TTL metering and ratio control and the IR triggering on a 5Dmk2 w/ 28-70 or 70-200 2.8L lenses. Flashes has 6x8 minimax softboxes, editing was done in LR/CS4 and using Portraiture Plugin from Imagenomics.

#1
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38353211@N04/3751537759/" title="20090723-384-Edit by Andrew Bowen, TX, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3022/3751537759_67a25fd4ef.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="20090723-384-Edit" /></a>


#2
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38353211@N04/3752329534/" title="20090723-371-Edit by Andrew Bowen, TX, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3512/3752329534_6b8381c292.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="20090723-371-Edit" /></a>


#3
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38353211@N04/3751537597/" title="20090723-401-Edit by Andrew Bowen, TX, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2552/3751537597_3e71808019.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="20090723-401-Edit" /></a>


#4
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38353211@N04/3749822763/" title="20090723-234-Edit by Andrew Bowen, TX, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3438/3749822763_7a6ff219bb.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="20090723-234-Edit" /></a>


#5
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38353211@N04/3750612820/" title="20090723-222-Edit by Andrew Bowen, TX, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3468/3750612820_752c85b4ea.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="20090723-222-Edit" /></a>

Hackbone

I think you did a great job on the color and processing. A few things to look for in your posing.
1. Broad lighting....gives you the impression of a fat face. Measure the distance visually from the nose to each ear. If they are not standing straight on one of them will be greater. Keep the side with the greatest distance in shadow to slim the face.

2. Try not to shoot straight into the shoulder. Turn the body 3/4's. Try not to hold up the tree.

3. The crop needs some attention and again into the shoulder

4. Broad light again and tipping the head down shows a double chin

5. This has great potential. If you could try to get the flash off to a 45 to the face and really reduce the fill of your main to get some shadows on the side of the face facing the camera.

The color is outstanding, keep up the good work.

adbsgicom

Thank you very much. In the case like #1, is the solution simply to move the font flash off to camera right? Would you want it aimed front-on to avoid creating a nose-shadow, or just go a little past front-on to enhance the shadow on the camera-side of her face?

Totally see (now) what you mean on 2. 3, we were just trying to play with her, the orange sunset and the dry field. As a portrait, it's a non-starter, it was more about the sky light. She's only 10, so perhaps just too small a person to make the picture work at all.

On #4, is that just a look one has to avoid in her case? She has a roundness to her chin. I see the double-chin showing up, just wondering if the slightly-downturned head look is achievable with her face, or if she just needs to keep her head up a bit more in general.

On #5, the second flash was at camera right 45-deg, but I can't recall if what ratio I was firing. I've been dinking with both manual and e-ttl metering and wanted to try the ettl multi-flash control. I may have been back near 1:1, but had been running 1:4 (camera:remote). This one could have been when I had the remote more at 90 and balanced with the front, but the shadow on her tummy makes me pretty sure I was at 45 and below eye-level to avoid execessive hat-shadow.

Hopefully her patience won't wear about before I get this stuff figured out where is comes more naturally. Thank you again for the very helpful feedback.

Hackbone

As a general rule the light is at a 45 to the body. For ladies it should come in over the front shoulder to show off the top figure.

For the double chin get your camera angle up a little more and maybe front on. Watch out for too sexy of a look. When a lady drops her chin and looks up it tends to be that way and she is too young yet for that look.

adbsgicom

Hackbone wrote:

As a general rule the light is at a 45 to the body. For ladies it should come in over the front shoulder to show off the top figure.

For the double chin get your camera angle up a little more and maybe front on. Watch out for too sexy of a look. When a lady drops her chin and looks up it tends to be that way and she is too young yet for that look.

She'll be too young for that look for another 20 years in my book...

So if

/ > body at 45-deg to vertical, light shooting across here

V camera shooting toward subject.

This would have the effect you talked about initially, where light hits the short-side of the face. But you said above that you want the light coming in from over the shoulder, (for women with some curves -- which thankfully mine as none) which would be a 45-deg camera left, which comes back to lighting the long side of the face. So to compensate you over-rotate the head slightly past 45-deg (shoulder-nose angle) to thin the face?

/ Body at 45'deg to vertical

^ V Light at 45 camera left and high coming down. Head pointed a little toward camera left (not too much, though).

I'll keep trying as long as my daughter lets me.

Thanks again.

Hackbone

Remember, these are starting rules. Nothing ever is set in stone. Remember ESP.....expression sells portraits, even if the lighting and posing are bad.

Ladies have the light coming in over the front shoulder to create shadows that show off the female form. Guys generally have it hitting them in the chest and thus a somewhat more masculind lighting.

adbsgicom

Thanks again.
shoot->analyze->learn->repeat...

VayCayMom

Beautiful skin tones!!

rhondavid

Beauitful young lady who looks very pretty in a hat. Out of the series
#3 is the only one I really have issues with. A tighter crop would certainly improve it; too much negative space. Hackbone's comments on posing are right on.

Overall, I think you did a good job of capturing the beauty and personality of this girl.

adbsgicom

Redid the crop:


Thanks for all the feedback.

Gary752

I liked them all. One thing I have to add is that she could almost pass as a Terri Clark look alike. The pose where her head is tilted down and looking up is a pose used on one of Terri Clark's albums.

GaryB

grimace

VayCayMom wrote:

Beautiful skin tones!!

I agree. Great lighting and comp as well.

adbsgicom

BroPhoto wrote:

I liked them all. One thing I have to add is that she could almost pass as a Terri Clark look alike. The pose where her head is tilted down and looking up is a pose used on one of Terri Clark's albums.

GaryB

I live in Texas, but I had to look up who Terri Clark is....
Hopefully it will many more years until she looks like that....