Took Sophie scouting for locations...

Mike J

I need to expand my "outdoor studio" beyond my backyard so I Sophie on an explore. Main stops were the high school and one of the city parks. Here are several from our explore. All were taken with either a 50 f/1.8 or an 85 f/1.4. All used on-camera flash shot through an umbrella.

#1 The HS has covered entry ways with brick walls on one side and is in nice open shade. One thing I learned today is don't mix an orange shirt with red brick. Going nuts with all of the red getting thrown in her face.


#2 The same covered entry has white columns


#3 Was looking for open shade and out by the ball fields found some storage sheds. The north side of these at 1:00PM were perfect.


#4 Same location as #3


#5 In the same general area, where some small buildings. I was looking for colorful backgrounds this time around. Same drill on the north side of the buildings.


#6 Next stop was one of the city parks that has an old train trestle running above part of the park.


#7 Same spot as #6 and yes I love the angled head and shoulders shot


The one thing I noticed is that I'm not taking a lot of 3/4 or full-length shots. I find these much harder due to my lack of posing experience...lots more work to do there.

Wil Davis

Gorgeous girl!

You need to be careful that the background doesn't overwhelm the main subject; either by choosing something which isn't going to interfere with the main subject, or isolating it by distance, and using a larger aperture to throw it out of focus.

The landscape vs. portrait thing is v. important (IMNSHO, although some folk might disagree); people tend to be long and thin, and so fit a portrait frame better than one which is wider than high. If you look at a collection of portraits, I'll bet that most of them use portrait format (duh… ). Artists have been producing pictures in that way for centuries, and if you decide to deviate, your audience isn't necessarily going to hail you as an innovator, but will more likely dismiss you as not knowing what the hell you're doing; the way to learn, is to study how other photographers (artists, painters) have tackled the same problem.

Having taken a quick look through this set, I'd say be more selective with the backgrounds; they're tending to get in the way just a bit; take care with the choice of colour; I realized that this was just a test run, but when it comes to the real thing, you might advise her to bring a choice of clothes/colours - something which goes with her complexion and also varied enough to fit the surroundings.

I like #3 & #4, they really need cropping; now if you crop "in the camera" by framing the picture correctly and being aware of which bits you're cutting off, not only will you end up with a better composition, but you will end up with more usable data and not need waste data by cropping as part of the PP.

Try to avoid having her shoulders "square-on" to the camera; the pictures where she's at more of an angle to the camera tend to be more flattering.

The trick for producing good-looking "un-posed" pictures is to get the subject to relax and be so comfortable with the camera that they totally ignore it. This is done by taking as many pictures as you can, and ignoring the first couple of hundred or so. In the days when I used film, I've done shoots with shy subjects where I've not even put film in the camera since I knew that the first half-dozen rolls wouldn't contain anything useful; of course most of us use digital these days, but the same applies, keep shooting until the subject relaxes, and then shoot even more!

You mentioned "All used on-camera flash shot through an umbrella." - I'm not quite sure I understand how you did that…

…so much for the lecture; I'm sure others will chime in with advice, but bear in mind that advice is usually worth exactly what you pay for it!



HTH -

- Wil

Mike J

Wil Davis wrote: »

Gorgeous girl!

Thank you. She gets it from her mother:D

The landscape vs. portrait thing is v. important (IMNSHO, although some folk might disagree); people tend to be long and thin, and so fit a portrait frame better than one which is wider than high. If you look at a collection of portraits, I'll bet that most of them use portrait format (duh… ). Artists have been producing pictures in that way for centuries, and if you decide to deviate, your audience isn't necessarily going to hail you as an innovator, but will more likely dismiss you as not knowing what the hell you're doing; the way to learn, is to study how other photographers (artists, painters) have tackled the same problem.

I'm definitely in the opposing camp on this. There are many examples of what I would consider fantastic portraits shot in landscape mode. Here's an example of someone wanting a horizontal shot rather than a vertical shot. Check out the #2 post on this thread: http://www.digitalgrin.com/showthread.php?t=162820
#3 and #4 are of her sitting down. These would not have worked in portrait mode. I did mess up the framing on them and would have like to include more of her...

Having taken a quick look through this set, I'd say be more selective with the backgrounds; they're tending to get in the way just a bit; take care with the choice of colour; I realized that this was just a test run, but when it comes to the real thing, you might advise her to bring a choice of clothes/colours - something which goes with her complexion and also varied enough to fit the surroundings.

Which backgrounds specifically do you find bothersome? I agree that the green on the wall in #3 is distracting but I like the texture it gives in #4

I like #3 & #4, they really need cropping; now if you crop "in the camera" by framing the picture correctly and being aware of which bits you're cutting off, not only will you end up with a better composition, but you will end up with more usable data and not need waste data by cropping as part of the PP.

How would you crop these?

You mentioned "All used on-camera flash shot through an umbrella." - I'm not quite sure I understand how you did that…

Meant to say off-camera flash...but there is an umbrella that works with on-camera flash. Check this out: http://www.strobella.com/

Wil Davis

You make valid points. I was just pointing out that I found the backgrounds to be a bit distracting, despite the nice texture. I suppose the whole thing is subjective, and that's what makes it interesting (or not… )

As far as cropping, here's what I would have done (I'll remove if you don't like):

Trimmed & tweaked the eyes:


Trimmed and removed the ugly background:


…and talking of backgrounds, the bricks (#1) are a picture in themselves, and (IMNSHO) they compete with her, especially when she's right next to the wall; if they'd been more out-of-focus, then she would have more of a chance (although the colours clash…)

…anyway, thanks for sharing!

HTH -

- Wil

Mike J

Wil Davis wrote: »

You make valid points. I was just pointing out that I found the backgrounds to be a bit distracting, despite the nice texture. I suppose the whole thing is subjective, and that's what makes it interesting (or not… )

As far as cropping, here's what I would have done (I'll remove if you don't like):

Trimmed & tweaked the eyes:


Trimmed and removed the ugly background:


…and talking of backgrounds, the bricks (#1) are a picture in themselves, and (IMNSHO) they compete with her, especially when she's right next to the wall; if they'd been more out-of-focus, then she would have more of a chance (although the colours clash…)

…anyway, thanks for sharing!

HTH -

- Wil

Wil - thanks for the work here. I have to admit that your crops are pretty close to what my NATURAL inclination would have been to do. As I said in the OP, I found myself much more comfortable with this type of crop (whether done in camera or in post). One of the things that I was trying to work on was to do some looser framing and crops.

I agree with the assessment about the bricks. These are a little too "new" looking for what I was trying to do and I did not get the DOF shallow enough.

Anyway - thanks for provoking some thoughts here. I appreciate it. Hopefully I can get some more location scouting done over the next few days.