Kasey at the Lake

kdog

Edit: Since nobody can seem to get past the wide-angle shots, I've removed them from the post. Maybe I can now get comments on the others.











And yes, it was very windy!

OBTW, this was her "senior shoot", her idea, and her choice of venue. Who could refuse? :dunno

Comment are always welcome, and thanks for looking.
-joel

Nikolai

Joel,
here's some feedback for you:

• the location is great.
• model has an awesome attitude
• :cry you need some gels on your flash
• :cry and a lightmeter too, to match the sun, so it doesn't look so "strobist"
• :cry I said it many, many times before: never, as in "N E V E R", shoot a standing female subject full height while standing up yourself. Waist level is the highestyou may go, knee level is better. At least if she doesn't have 10ft legs.
• :cry And just the opposite, when your model is sitting down, get higher. Shoulder height the lowest, or higher.

Good series , but keep learning, my old padawan friend

kdog

Nikolai wrote:

Joel,
here's some feedback for you:

• the location is great.
• model has an awesome attitude
• :cry you need some gels on your flash

Thought about that. I processed the shots warm though. You think they look too cool?

• :cry and a lightmeter too, to match the sun, so it doesn't look so "strobist"

The "strobist" look is intentional. I purposefully underexposed the background by a stop. It's a subjective call I guess, but it is an accepted technique, and I like it.

• :cry I said it many, many times before: never, as in "N E V E R", shoot a standing female subject full height while standing up yourself. Waist level is the highestyou may go, knee level is better. At least if she doesn't have 10ft legs.

You make it sound like they all suffer from that. But I think 1 and 3 are the only ones that apply to that comment. Hopefully you will agree with that. Those two are actually a result of me playing around with wide angles.

The other ones were shot from down low with a longer lens. Like this one which you may find more to your liking.

• :cry And just the opposite, when your model is sitting down, get higher. Shoulder height the lowest, or higher.

Actually both of those are framed exactly how I wanted them. And the last one is almost dead eye-level, so where's the problem?

Good series , but keep learning, my old padawan friend

Thanks for your comments, Jedi Master. I always value your input, although I do reserve the right to push back.

Cheers,
-joel

Svennie

I haven't earned my light saber by far, but here are my .02$

Nikolai wrote:

Joel,
here's some feedback for you:

• the location is great.
• model has an awesome attitude

I agree!

When I looked at the photos I had a feeling something 'wasn't right'. I checked your website and indeed: these are taken with wide angle @15mm. It is a matter of taste and it is nowadays quite common to do so, but I don't like the distortions. Sorry

Edit: I see you posted an image with a longer lens. Much, much better

Nikolai

Underexposing BG is one thing. Overexposing the subject is another.
As for going for strobist look - well, I agree, it's a matter of personal taste and goals. If that's what you wanted - sure, you got it.

Mitchell

I love the location and the model, but I just can't get past how distorted she looks in most of these. The distortion of her head and/or her legs is unflattering in several. I find the shot you posted with your longer lens more appealing.

kdog

Thanks for the comments, Mitchel. I get it, people hate the wide angle shots. There were two long-lens shots in the original post that people seemed to have missed. Therefore, I've deleted the wide angle ones so that future readers can concentrate on the others.

Svennie

kdog wrote:

Thanks for the comments, Mitchel. There were two long-lens shots in the original post. I've removed all the wide-angle shots so that maybe I can now get comments on the others.

Could you please leave them here? Maybe others would like to see the effects of wide angle lenses and learn from this post as well.
And all in all they were oke photos, but like you said not everybody is a big fan of wide angle shots of people. Others do like them (like people of the PR-department at my day-job).

kdog

Folks are of course welcome to see the wide-angle shots from the shoot here. http://desertilluminations.com/People/Kasey/11446326_AXPU8#834404893_FgpXG

AndMan

Please take my input with a large amount of salt as I don't shoot people, but I had a look at the gallery & I love this one.

kdog

Thanks, Andman. That was actually one her favorites as well. The following one is another favorite of hers and in fact she made it her ModelMayhem Avatar. (Real people photographers may want to avert their eyes for this one. )

Caspian

A couple comments. The sharp shadows on her legs is distracting. She looks 30 pounds lighter in the picture that AndMan pulled from your web site.
David

grimace

Great looking work Joel. I too like the one of her laying down on the ground.

Hackbone

Joel, as others said my 2 cents. She did not help you wardrobe by her choice of skirt. She has full legs and the skirt shows that. In photo #1 your could help her by reversing her legs. Bring the front leg to her left and the back leg slightly more to her right. This will make the hips appear to be narrower. The way she is standing she is making that area as broad as possible.

In #2 you've got to have a great bod to be straight on. A slight turn makes the torso slimmer and accents the bust line.

In #3 the top part is excellent. Body away from the main light and head tilt back into the main. Gives great facial light and shows off the bust line.

kdog

Thanks, guys.

Hackbone, those are great comments, and I always enjoy looking at your work.

Regards,
-joel

zoomer

I really like the first one, to me the light mix on that one looks just right.
The flash shadow from the skirt on her legs really bug me however. If you had shot that with a softbox and didn't have that sharp shadow line that one would really be nice.

By the way shooting normal sized women from below is a recipe for failure....don't care who says different how many times.....
maybe if you are shooting them from some distance you can get away with it.

Scootersbabygirl

I think some of them are interesting - I do like the one with her laying on the ground, except that beyond her knees looks really dark. The only problem I can see is that in number 2 (from the very top of the thread) she seems a bit blue. But other than that, good work with the situation and wind that you had!!

dogwood

Something I haven't seen mentioned here is that the light looks awfully harsh. You have a couple of options-- get the sunlight behind her as a rim light or use a scrim if you have someone to hold it. Or wait until later/earlier in the day for the "golden hour".

kdog

zoomer wrote: »

I really like the first one, to me the light mix on that one looks just right.
The flash shadow from the skirt on her legs really bug me however. If you had shot that with a softbox and didn't have that sharp shadow line that one would really be nice.

By the way shooting normal sized women from below is a recipe for failure....don't care who says different how many times.....
maybe if you are shooting them from some distance you can get away with it.

Hey Zoomer, thanks for the comments. I love your comment about shooting from below. That was with a 100mm lens, so wasn't so close actually. Kasey is a very short person and evidently angles make a big difference.

The wind that day precluded using an umbrella. I've since bought a small softbox to use on shoots like this and am looking forward to trying it out soon. (My photography is on a bit of a hiatus lately due to some other projects.)

Cheers,
-joel

kdog

Scootersbabygirl wrote: »

I think some of them are interesting - I do like the one with her laying on the ground, except that beyond her knees looks really dark. The only problem I can see is that in number 2 (from the very top of the thread) she seems a bit blue. But other than that, good work with the situation and wind that you had!!

Thanks! You're right about #2, the processing there is decidedly on the cool side. I should have fixed it before posting it.

kdog

dogwood wrote: »

Something I haven't seen mentioned here is that the light looks awfully harsh. You have a couple of options-- get the sunlight behind her as a rim light or use a scrim if you have someone to hold it. Or wait until later/earlier in the day for the "golden hour".

Thanks, Dogwood! Harsh light was all my fault since it was almost completely overcast that afternoon. It was also extremely windy and I used bare flashes for these. I've since bought a small softbox that I hope to be able to use on location like this.

Best regards,
-joel