First Senior Shoot

e mari ad terram · June 4, 2011

I know it is really late in the season, like season over... but... I wanted to get a jump on next year :huh

I have been lurking around all you Senior Shooters threads, blogs, and websites (thanks JKMann) I spent a lot of time diggin through your posts...

Anyway, there are some kids from our church who were looking for sessions, and I offered some free gigs for practice...

Please let me know what you think, be honest, I can handle it.

Ryan

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Thanks for looking!

Hackbone · June 4, 2011

Good ideas and color....congrats. That is a big point.
Some things to watch out for. You have alot of broad lighted poses, meaning the largest portion of her face facing the camera is lighted and that makes a face appear to be fat. Not a good thing with the ladies. (1-3-4&5) Always try to turn the subject away from the light and turn the face back toward the light and generally this gives you a short light pattern meaning the broad part of the face facing the camera is shaded giving depth to the portrait. Make a fist and hold it in front of you face and do a 360 turn. Watch where the fist is in and out of shadow. Find where the fist is part light and shadow and then put your subject in the same position.

On profiles never let the nose poke thru the backside of the facial outline (3). Turn the head so the nose is the outline. Also never show a portion of the far eye (3).

4 try not to shoot directly into the shoulder.

In 4 try to keep you backgrounds in the same key. Meaning dark with dark and then bright with bright. In 4 you've mixed the two. Light area on top and dark on the bottom. You eye will always go to the brightest area first and you want that to be the face and not the sky. This one would have worked out better with her sitting on the ground. Then you would have a darker bkg with the fence causing leading lines.

Again these are general rules and they are broken alot so take that for what it is worth. You have the start of some really great portraits here. Just tweek them slightly. Again, good work on the ideas and color. Good job.

e mari ad terram · June 4, 2011

Hackbone wrote: »

Good ideas and color....congrats. That is a big point.
Some things to watch out for. You have alot of broad lighted poses, meaning the largest portion of her face facing the camera is lighted and that makes a face appear to be fat. Not a good thing with the ladies. (1-3-4&5) Always try to turn the subject away from the light and turn the face back toward the light and generally this gives you a short light pattern meaning the broad part of the face facing the camera is shaded giving depth to the portrait. Make a fist and hold it in front of you face and do a 360 turn. Watch where the fist is in and out of shadow. Find where the fist is part light and shadow and then put your subject in the same position.

On profiles never let the nose poke thru the backside of the facial outline (3). Turn the head so the nose is the outline. Also never show a portion of the far eye (3).

4 try not to shoot directly into the shoulder.

In 4 try to keep you backgrounds in the same key. Meaning dark with dark and then bright with bright. In 4 you've mixed the two. Light area on top and dark on the bottom. You eye will always go to the brightest area first and you want that to be the face and not the sky. This one would have worked out better with her sitting on the ground. Then you would have a darker bkg with the fence causing leading lines.

Again these are general rules and they are broken alot so take that for what it is worth. You have the start of some really great portraits here. Just tweek them slightly. Again, good work on the ideas and color. Good job.

Thanks for the great tips! I am always trying to better my portrait work (mostly cause I am not a really good people person (working on that))... Also working on using fill flash correctly. For "the broad lighted poses" I basically tried to find shade and then popped a very low fill flash with an omni bounce mounted on camera... To avoid this light pattern, would it be advisable to get that flash off camera and to one side or the other? How does using straight on (camera mounted) fill flash negatively affect the portrait? Do you have any tips on fill?

Thanks

Ryan

NeilL · June 4, 2011

I like how relaxed these are. And I think they are relaxed partly because neither the subject nor you are straining to win sexy glamour points. Her beauty is enhanced that way, and by the very careful and restrained makeup and hairstyle, so the closeups are very pleasantly fresh and youthful, rather than a lot of guck adhering all over. Your processing works along with that - you can actually see the real skin surface! I'm always perplexed when I see an artificial mask put over youthfulness, ostensibly to create youthfulness.

Aren't seniors photos all about youthfulness?

You are obviously very conscious of dof for separation, and I think you could go further, eg in #1 I think the subject is too close to the bg on the left side. In that one, and in #2 I think the bg overpowers the subject. Getting the bg to recede at an angle, while using shallow dof and enough subject-bg separation, is a good formula, and one that Jeff uses and has perfected. #4 is the most successful in that respect.

I think high pov can be tricky, and in #3 it exaggerates the hair part and the length of the nose, neither what we want to see most of. In this one and in #5 I think a lower angle would have produced a more attractive face and body shape.

Charles has given some expert tips on lighting. You were using open (late) daylight (with fill?), so strong highlight-shadow definition not so easy, unless you want the artificial to dominate, and I am not a big fan in most naturalistic portraits of the lighting taking over the image. So I think the result here is good.

Only ##1 & 2 are satisfactorily sharp, and I believe the eye needs to find at least one part in an image which is dead sharp. I think possibly your processing could have more impact by carefully setting black and white points, your histogram will guide you in that.

Neil

e mari ad terram · June 4, 2011

NeilL wrote: »

I like how relaxed these are. And I think they are relaxed partly because neither the subject nor you are straining to win sexy glamour points. Her beauty is enhanced that way, and by the very careful and restrained makeup and hairstyle, so the closeups are very pleasantly fresh and youthful, rather than a lot of guck adhering all over. Your processing works along with that - you can actually see the real skin surface! I'm always perplexed when I see an artificial mask put over youthfulness, ostensibly to create youthfulness. Aren't seniors photos all about youthfulness?

You are obviously very conscious of dof for separation, and I think you could go further, eg in #1 I think the subject is too close to the bg on the left side. In that one, and in #2 I think the bg overpowers the subject. Getting the bg to recede at an angle, while using shallow dof and enough subject-bg separation, is a good formula, and one that Jeff uses and has perfected. #4 is the most successful in that respect.

I think high pov can be tricky, and in #3 it exaggerates the hair part and the length of the nose, neither what we want to see most of. In this one and in #5 I think a lower angle would have produced a more attractive face and body shape.

Charles has given some expert tips on lighting. You were using open (late) daylight (with fill?), so strong highlight-shadow definition not so easy, unless you want the artificial to dominate, and I am not a big fan in most naturalistic portraits of the lighting taking over the image. So I think the result here is good.

Only ##1 & 2 are satisfactorily sharp, and I believe the eye needs to find at least one part in an image which is dead sharp. I think possibly your processing could have more impact by carefully setting black and white points, your histogram will guide you in that.

Neil

Thanks Neil. I appreciate the comments. Posing is not a strong suit of mine, and I feel like I really lucked out on this set... I did some reduction of clarity in LR to smooth out skin tones, etc, but not so much that is makes everything blah. I want to go back and hit the eyes and other key facial points with some local adjustments to give them a pop.

BTW - Here is the rest of the gallery...

http://www.sliversoflight.com/Client-Galleries/Seniors/Shelbey

Baxter2011

Ryan

Hackbone · June 4, 2011

Ryan, got a chance to check out the site and again you've got some great processing and color and skin tones, congrats on that. You need to work on posing. Go to as many sites as you can and collect a folder of favorite poses and print them out. Try to use at least four of them on every session. Put them up on your refrigerator, office space etc and look at them constantly.

Watch people as they are sitting, standing, leaning etc. Those are comfortable, natural poses that they can then use.

Some points to remember.....get the flash off camera you will then get direction of light.

again do the "fist" demo and get the senior to stand where there is a shaded and lighted light. This puts their back to the light and then bring the head toward the light and it will then give you shading on the face.

If you have two of something get them on different planes......two eyes.......two shoulders.........two hands.....etc. Get the two similar objects on different planes.....tilt the head raise or lower a hand........kick a hip out etc.

If you find a pose that the subject is in and like there probably is another pose if you would walk around your subject and find it.

Try to always turn your subject a little. This will make them slimmer.

Bring a large reflector with you either to reflect light onto the subject or to act as a gobo to block some light from your subject.

I know this is a hodge podge of info but it is all practical and useful. Join your local association and or try to find photo classes that are small in number so you can get individual attention. There are some great photographers in your area and your local state association can make even more recomendations.

Best of luck to you.

First Senior Shoot

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