Senior Pictures - Paige C&C Please

Caspian

Over the next few days, I will be posting some Senior pictures I took last year before joining dgrin. I really appreciate your comments on all aspects: composition, exposure, posing, and whatever else you see.

This is a series of pictures from a photo session last November. It was a cold day and spitting sleet for part of the session. I had hoped to shoot with all natural light, but ended up using the strobe on camera as fill for most of the shots.

1) This is the one she chose for the year book.


2) This was the other top choice:


3) I liked this idea, but the tonality of her face was too close to the background. You can also see the small catch light in her eyes from the OC flash.


4) I tried taking down the bg and adjusting the levels in the foreground, but the result didn't look natural to me.


We took several other poses, but her family and friends voted and liked these the best. I have already picked up some ideas for other poses from some of the nice work I have seen here.

Here are a few that I liked that didn't make the cut. These have had no post processing.

5)


6)


7)


Unfortunately, it was too cold to get very silly.

Thanks in advance for your comments.
David

Hackbone

David, it seems that you have a great rapport with the student. You have gotten some very nice expressions out of her. Remember ESP... (expression sells portraits).

On the technical side the lighting appears to be flat. This makes her face appear to be broad, not a good thing for a female. Try to always look for an overhang and then try to find the direciton of light. Carry a ping pong ball and hold it up and move it around to see where the shadows fall then place your subject in that position. Turn her face into the light and maybe drop the front shoulder alittle. If you can't always find an overhang just carry a 4x4 piece of foam board and have someone hold it over her to block the light and you will get some direction of light.

Don't worry about the small catch light from the flash. You can always paint in a bigger catch light.

Qarik

perfectly exposed, in focus, composed, and well processed. Very good baseline type work. Now do you have anything more fun from that shoot?:D

Those are the shots that you hope to get out the way so you definitely know they have something solid to give them. Now you can get crazy!

Caspian

Hackbone, I agree that the light was very flat. I carry a reflector on the shoots. It wouldn't have been helpful here as a reflector because the light was lost to the sleet storm. But, it would make a great shield to use as an overhang if necessary.
Qarik, there were some fun shots. She is a good friend of my daughter and my daughter was also at the shoot. I added a few more to the post. I wish the weather would have been better because I think we would have had some fun shots.
Thanks,
David

jeffreaux2

Things to watch out for....

- Remember every portrait doesn'y begin with a smile......strive for a variety of facial expressions.

- These appear that they could all use a bump of warmth. White balance.


Good things I see....

As others have mentioned technically these are pretty much on target.

-The arms/hands under the face in 5 can sometimes be tricky. It can easily looked contrived, but looks natural hare.


-The shaping of the hand in #6 is very nice.....a suggestion would be to hold that finger shaping but slide the wrist a tad more away from the camera to show a little less hand.

Caspian

Jeff,
Very helpful, thanks. You have posted some good examples here and on your web site.
David