Rachel

Paul Iddon

This is my darling daughter, just turned eleven.

She isn't really dressing up as such, except that she was wearing an old pair of the wife's specs for fun. There is no glass in the frames, hence no reflection! :smile6

Save to say, this is a good a photo of Rachel as I have managed to get recently, in fact, in a long time to be honest.

I used the window light to light the scene from behind with paper on the floor in front of her, and the ringflash (set to -2 Ev) to pop in a bit of illumination from the front and to help lift the skin tones a touch. Oh, and it was the nifty fifty, and using -1 Ev.

In processing, very little (in fact I only cropped it and added a smidgeon of of contrast I think) done in LR, then exported to CS3 where I duplicated the image, and in there made a selection around Rachel's head and top, inversed and promoted to a new layer where I applied levels to darken the external light and then increased exposure by 1 stop and added a guassian blur of 16 before flattening the layers and copying all of this across over to the original, where I used the screen blending mode on this new layer and reduced the opacity to balance it all out.

For me, I think I did a pretty decent job of it, being a non-portrait photographer.

C&C as always appreciated.


Exif:

Camera Make: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 450D
Image Date: 2009:07:29 16:39:51
Flash Used: Yes (Manual)
Focal Length: 50.0mm
CCD Width: 4.18mm
Exposure Time: 0.010 s (1/100)
Aperture: f/2.2
ISO equiv: 100
Exposure Bias: -1.00
White Balance: Manual
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: aperture priority (semi-auto)







Paul.

gvf

Nice
I really like that - the glasses and the expression together seem so unique..

rainbow

I think you nailed the lighting -- brings out beautiful skin tones. Not sure if the focus is sharper on her right eye (the one further away) -- that distracts me ever so slightly.

I wish my daughter were as cooperative when she was eleven...

Paul Iddon

I used f/2.2 to throw the focus shallow, so thats why her right eye drops OoF a little. I needed it shallow cos of the lead-flashing on the window itself.


Thanks both for looking and commenting.

Paul.

Photosbychuck

Great Shot

sweet caroline

I like the softness and the colors. Also like her serious and thoughtful expression. Cute hair. My 12 year old went this short recently.

Paul Iddon

Thank you both


Paul.