Outdoor portraits

Macushla

I love looking at everyone's senior portraits so I thought I'd try some similar looks with my little guy. I learned a bunch of things, mostly it is much harder than it looks!!! I think I will try a fill flash with the next one and wait a bit later so the shadows are not as harsh. In the first 2 I tried to lighten the face in PP but it lost something. I just read through the Sticky on Fill flash for outdoor shots, I missed that one before I took these but I'll try it on the next kid.

I'd love some suggestions.

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And just for fun (this was part of a local photography group assignment on lens burst or swirl)

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C&C always welcome!!! Here are a few more.

jeffreaux2

#3 is very nice.....the best of the bunch!

Macushla

Thanks Jeff. That's my favorite also. Hopefully I'll get better ones next time.

Caspian

I like them all and especially #3. I would be interested in seeing 1 and 3 composed or cropped so that his eyes weren't so much in the center of the frame.

adbsgicom

+1 on #3.
I think the first one suffers from too much harsh sun on his head and arm and a very busy background. The second one also has a pretty distracting background and the focus seems a bit off (the stones are very sharp but his eyes are not).

#3 is really nice. b/g blurs out nicely and he has a nice expression. I think the image could be a little warmer (notice how grey his hair is compared to the other two) and perhaps a little brighter (not totally sure there).

last one is cool.

Macushla

Thanks you guys so much for the great suggestions. I will work on them.

kidzmom

Cute little boy and I agree with the pp's that #3 is the best of the bunch. I'm also with andrew on warming it up a bit. I got that "grey" feeling about the hair that Andrew noticed. I noticed that first and then went on to see that adorable dimple and natural expression! Great capture. The bike one is super fun. I bet he'd love that blown up for his wall! Nice job with these.

Macushla

My photoshop skills are limited but here's a warmer version. I only have a laptop and it is not calibrated so that doesn't help either. I think the gray on his hair is the sun bouncing off the stones, maybe? He was backlit to some extent. I may go out again today, it is really cloudy the light might be nice.

Caspian

I like the warmer colors. How do you like this crop? It's a standard 8x10 format and moves the eyes off center.

Macushla

Caspian wrote:

I like the warmer colors. How do you like this crop? It's a standard 8x10 format and moves the eyes off center.

I like it, thanks so much.

Macushla

Mini man, take two. Any better?

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I think the colors are more saturated, I like that about them. (they are so much nicer looking on my home computer - they loose a lot of the color when I import them to picassa - you get what you pay for right?) I am definitely struggling with the fill flash - it did not work out as well as I had hoped. I think by this point I had ditched it.

C&C Most appreciated.

Caspian

I like the composition and the colors in all three. In #1, the fill flash left some unnatural shadows under his eyes and a sharp shadow behind his head. The other two look fine and if you were using fill, it is not obvious. The background in #2 is a little busy but it is a nice shot.

I like the way you incorporated the comments from the first round of posts. Your model is going to want a raise in his allowance.

Macushla

Caspian wrote:

I like the composition and the colors in all three. In #1, the fill flash left some unnatural shadows under his eyes and a sharp shadow behind his head. The other two look fine and if you were using fill, it is not obvious. The background in #2 is a little busy but it is a nice shot.

I like the way you incorporated the comments from the first round of posts. Your model is going to want a raise in his allowance.

I am trying!!!:D I went back and looked at the photo info for all of them and I was using the fill flash in all. It is in the hot shoe on the camera, I kept changing the angle on it but I really still don't have the hang of it. I've got to read more about fill flash.

Mini man was loosing it by the end - here is one where the fill flash was a total bust, there are a bunch like this.

Caspian

You'll want to save that one to show his Prom date. To soften the fill, you can buy a diffuser that will fit on the flash head or you can attach a white index card with a rubber band and it will reflect light back on to the subject. Try playing around with the flash exposure compensation and back off the flash by two stops and see how you like that effect. You can play with different amount of FEC to see what you like.

Macushla

Here are some of the other kids from yesterday. C&C always welcome. Am I heading in the right direction?

1. She was the first one I did and I had a lot of problems
with the fill flash. There were not that many usable ones.
She has braces and doesn't like to smile right now.


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Here are some of the others from the day.

Caspian

I like all three. Can you lighten #1 by about a stop and warm it a little? It is a nice picture. #3 is my favorite of this bunch. You really have all the elements for a nice casual portrait.

adbsgicom

Caspian wrote:

I like all three. Can you lighten #1 by about a stop and warm it a little? It is a nice picture. #3 is my favorite of this bunch. You really have all the elements for a nice casual portrait.

#3 is really wonderful (IMHO)

Macushla

adbsgicom wrote:

#3 is really wonderful (IMHO)

Careful, I'm going to get a big head soon. Oh, never mind I'm humbled again by my lack of photoshop skills. Here's my attempt at fixing #1. I am going to go again with her and see if I can get something better. They are so much warmer on my computer, they really loose a lot when I upload them.

Macushla

UGHHHHHHHH I just looked at these photos on my other computer. I have a regular Macbook, I looked at them on my kids gateway PC and they look totally different. On the macbook the colors are much duller and the focus seems really soft, now I see why people have been saying I'm over sharpening my photos. They do look crazy on the PC.

cry:cry I tried calibrating the macbook with the built in calibration assistant but it is really hard and no matter what I do the colors are not as bright or the clarity as good as on the Gateway monitor. Is it possible to edit photos on a laptop? Should I be saving up for a new computer... I've been saving up for a new lens. There is definitely not enough money to go around. cry:cry

I guess if there is a bright side to this, my focus is not as soft as I thought it was.

Caspian

What kind of monitor do you have on the Gateway? I would have expected the Mac display to be better. I like the warmer and lighter version of this shot.

Macushla

Caspian wrote:

What kind of monitor do you have on the Gateway? I would have expected the Mac display to be better. I like the warmer and lighter version of this shot.

It is the standard monitor that came with the Gateway bundle. My mac is a laptop, it is about 5 years old.