A few from yesterday's headshot session (C&C)
C&C always welcome!!
Another big long shoot yesterday - so much for spring "break" :rofl. That's it for the moment, though; can't deny I'll be glad to have a few true days off from performing, teaching AND shooting - any other pictures this week will be for *me*
This is another very fun gal, although she was soooo much more difficult to shoot than Nicola the other day. They're both good performers onstage, but where N just lit up in front of the camera, Lisa often offered the "school picture" smile, didn't really play into body angles naturally at all and was generally quite stiff. In addition to that, my gear seemed to be BEWITCHED. I have no idea what the heck was going on but NOTHING consistently worked the way it was supposed to . Camera, lenses, flashes.... they all plotzed on me at one point or another. All the exact same gear as was used on Saturday, so go figure. I'll chalk it up to gremlins, test like crazy in coming weeks, and cross fingers I can figure out what it was so it doesn't happen again!!
In any case, here are a few from the session that I liked....
1. Straight up headshot. I could'nt believe it when she put on the red dress (and our MUA added those lips) - the first set we did (not shown here) were like school pictures, and then all of a sudden she almost turned into a model with those bones and enormous eyes....
2.
3. Everything is massively in bloom at the moment - I couldn't resist indulging, even if it was a bit "off the brief" (she can use all these "artsy" ones for websites/promo - we got plenty of straight headshots for her to choose from as well
4. This shot took everything I could throw at it in PP to save it - still not sure if I like it or not (or if the result is really worth it). We were working wtih a reflector at this point, but the late sun was SO bright that it had to be feathered right to the edge, and we had to use the white side (since silver nearly blinded her ... and me!); in this shot, it must have moved right as I took it, since it was noticeably underexposed, pp made it grainy blahblahblahblahblah. Still, I like the pose better than many of the other full-length shots we got (and she wanted some full-length ones).... I'm struggling with full-length at the moment - I just seem to have myself locked into "waist up" and really haven't get full body poses down yet. That Sue Bryce seminar is starting to sound attractive....
5.
6. This location was a lucky find - literally right around the corner, only I'd never noticed it before until I was out walking with the dog yesterday morning. This was a really awkward shot to frame, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out - love that scrollwork :lust
Another big long shoot yesterday - so much for spring "break" :rofl. That's it for the moment, though; can't deny I'll be glad to have a few true days off from performing, teaching AND shooting - any other pictures this week will be for *me*
This is another very fun gal, although she was soooo much more difficult to shoot than Nicola the other day. They're both good performers onstage, but where N just lit up in front of the camera, Lisa often offered the "school picture" smile, didn't really play into body angles naturally at all and was generally quite stiff. In addition to that, my gear seemed to be BEWITCHED. I have no idea what the heck was going on but NOTHING consistently worked the way it was supposed to . Camera, lenses, flashes.... they all plotzed on me at one point or another. All the exact same gear as was used on Saturday, so go figure. I'll chalk it up to gremlins, test like crazy in coming weeks, and cross fingers I can figure out what it was so it doesn't happen again!!
In any case, here are a few from the session that I liked....
1. Straight up headshot. I could'nt believe it when she put on the red dress (and our MUA added those lips) - the first set we did (not shown here) were like school pictures, and then all of a sudden she almost turned into a model with those bones and enormous eyes....
2.
3. Everything is massively in bloom at the moment - I couldn't resist indulging, even if it was a bit "off the brief" (she can use all these "artsy" ones for websites/promo - we got plenty of straight headshots for her to choose from as well
4. This shot took everything I could throw at it in PP to save it - still not sure if I like it or not (or if the result is really worth it). We were working wtih a reflector at this point, but the late sun was SO bright that it had to be feathered right to the edge, and we had to use the white side (since silver nearly blinded her ... and me!); in this shot, it must have moved right as I took it, since it was noticeably underexposed, pp made it grainy blahblahblahblahblah. Still, I like the pose better than many of the other full-length shots we got (and she wanted some full-length ones).... I'm struggling with full-length at the moment - I just seem to have myself locked into "waist up" and really haven't get full body poses down yet. That Sue Bryce seminar is starting to sound attractive....
5.
6. This location was a lucky find - literally right around the corner, only I'd never noticed it before until I was out walking with the dog yesterday morning. This was a really awkward shot to frame, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out - love that scrollwork :lust
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The lipstick is bordering on too much for me. I can't decide if it isn't "her color" or if it's just too red?
Nice work!
Jeff
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The MUA went for the big lips, btw - at first I thought it would be too much, but I ended up really liking it. It's a bit "fashion" rather than "natural", but I do like that very polished look. I've had to tweak the colour ever so slightly - it was a little pinker (only a little, and just as strong) but because the dress is SUCH a strong red I thought it was better if they were in the same tonal family.
Btw, I thought of you when I spotted that wrought iron railing - we may not be Nawlins, but every once in a while the landscape proves that we ARE in the south (however marginally lol)!
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Nits on two...
Although in image one her eyes look blueish, in two they are an unreal shade of aqua, at least on my home monitor. Also, I would have loved to see her ankles crossed instead of the feet just laying there. But, I must say, the pose is a real winner for this gal!
She is gorgeous and I don't think any of these shots are "yeah that is the one" shots.
For me 3 is the only one that shows any personality, the rest have that waiting for the camera to go off look and the 123 smile look.
The prettier the girl is the more pressure it puts on the photographer to really nail it.
Do you have any fun outtakes of her?
Of these 1 and 2 are probably your best candidates.
On 1 clean up the white area behind her head , on two crop that sliver of couch off the bottom, and watch out for disappearing hands on shot like this. 2 is a great pose choice for her.
On 1 looks like maybe the black point is just a bit much.
The color combination in 6 with the blue dress is money. Do you have any close portraits with that combination?
3 5 and 6, the chin is down to much.
I like your settings and light overall in these....except for 4, wouldn't spend any more time on that one.
Lots of potential in this set...all critiques meant to be constructive in nature....overall this is a very strong set that most people would be proud of. I know you have a higher standard and want your work to be amazing.....
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Zoomer, you've nailed it. I feel exactly as you do about her expressions but I just couldn't seem to get much else out of her! She's a blinker (I must have lost 50 or more shots due to closed eyes) and none of my usual techniques to get a relaxed, engaged expression seemed to connect with her. NO outtakes - she seemed to have radar for when I'd be about to press the shutter and look back to me!!
In #2 I left the sliver of sofa in so it was clear she was leaning on something, btw - also to avoid orphan fingers (if you crop from the bottom, you lose how the hand is connected to the arm, if you see what I mean). I wish I could have backed up more , but I was already - literally - in the next room, so just framed it in a way that I hoped would at least count as "context" rather than "missed composition"
Mike, I will say your comments prompted me to go back through the set to look for some more expressions. I didn't really find any new shots to add to her set (sigh), but what I DID realise is that the sofa series (#2) - which were some of her best expressions - can be cropped to portrait orientation so they lose the feet and with some tweaking will make a great straight-up headshot. Score! (and a shout out for why I have NO problem with the 7d's pixel density
PS BRyce, re the eyes -- they don't look too aqua to me, although they're not quite as navy blue as they are in the first one - I think it's just the difference in lighting (I had some mixed light sources for the sofa set). When I deep edit for her final picks, I'll be sure to check that.
You broke several rules and as the result got somewhat sub-par images, while following the rules would cost you nothing and would improve the results substantially.
1. While I consider it the best of the crop (shooting from above, body rotated) it could benefit from the shorter lighting, as the subject is not a skinny girl and shorter lighting "eats" girth...
2. Her left arm looks huge. Unless you shoot from 15 ft or farther you can not have any limbs get closer to the camera than the face - these are headshots, not armshots.
There is a rule - bright things attract/distract. The pillow on the bottom, forearms, legs are all brighter than the face. If this was a total HK image with no detail and pure white bg it would have less/no impact, but in its current state they are what they are - distractions.
3. It's been said that many, many times by many, many people: shooting upper body from below the eye level and at full frontal to the camera rarely works, especially considering the aforementioned fact that your model is not size 2.
4. And, suddenly, when it got to the full height shot, you got slightly elevated vantage point. Had this been upper body or headshot this would make sense, but for the full height - sorry, it doesn't. The rule is - shoot from below (below her waist, in some cases below her knees) or from highly elevated position. Especially sad mistake since here you got her body in profile, which is good. Yet again - watch those arms - they are bright against the dark dress and looks huse since they are pressing against the body (didn't we discuss that before?)
5. Last one, while also being one of the best of the crop, could also benefit from a a less frontal body position and better arms/hands placement.
Hope this helps!
Nikolai
That said, I'm getting terribly confused over the "shoot from below" thing, since you suggest that as a cardinal rule for all body-types full-length, and yet others say NEVER shoot from below even in full length (see my thread from a few days ago - I gave a shout out to you on that, but quite a few comments said they didn't like the result. That may, of course, be my ineptitude of execution, but fwiw...) So.... what is the full theory behind this position/angle - the better I can understand *why*, then I can make my own informed artistic decisions regarding when it will work and when it won't give me the results I want
I will say that as far as my shooting positions and vantage points outside, those were at least partly out of my control due to the TERRAIN. I had to stand in specific places to get the shot, and short of digging a tunnel or having a piece of plywood upon which to put my stepladder so it didn't sink into the soft grass (or fall over on the hill we were standing on).... I didn't have a choice because of the natural slope on the street around the building
Kidding aside, what do you all do when faced with those kind of conundrums? I'm not a nervous nelly and will take a few risks, but I'm not sure ANY shot is worth a major accident or lawsuit.
ETA: Any chance you could post some shots with a full-length from above and then from below to show us? I really am trying to figure this out, so don't want you to think my comments above are defensive - keen to learn, but not entirely grasping the *why* of this particular technique, so some comparisons would be awesome!
I LIKE the red lips and the way it sets off her blue eyes!
I like # 1, LOVE # 2 and really like the creative framing of the ironwork in # 6.
The only one I really don't like very much is # 3 where there is too much mouth in her smile for my taste.
All that said, she is beautiful and I agree that she's a more normal sized woman than most models (including mine).
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Well, please allow me me to avoid the discussion of what's skinny and what not. One person's skinny is another person's anorexic and one person's curvy is another person fat cow
Angles... I stopped shooting from the eye level long time ago, so finding the "offending images" in my collection would be problematic. And everything more recent is, well, less "decent" (if you know what I mean ;-) so sharing it in public would be even more problematic. However, it would take you but 5 minutes with any person to try these angles yourself and see the difference. In the meantime let me bore you with the "theory" :-)
I do make one assumption: we're talking about taking a portrait of "regualrly bodied" female subjects with the intention to make the subject look the most pleasant. Males, kids, groups, exessive girth or anorexia requires different approach to achieve more pleasant looks. Also, sometimes the goal is to create drama, comic scene, etc. The concepts will stay, just the efect will be different.
Also, I'm not covering body rotation, hands position or any of the lighting/posing techniques that can (and should be) used along the the proper vantage point to achieve the desired effect.
Headshots:
optimal position: slightly (up to ~30 degrees) about the subject eye level.
This makes subject to raise her chin, thus avoiding any neck creasing, as well as making chin smaller and hair richer/larger. It also often creates or emphasizes the effect of the so called "sanpaku eyes", which many consider especially pleasant.
Going below the eye level leads to such effects as "shooting up the nostrils", heavier chin, neck creases, smaller/thinner hair.
Upper body:
optimal position: anywhere from the headshot position to the eye level. Going higher may make breats look smaller, but depending on the outfit/cleavage shape can create a very sexy/seductive pleasant effect. Afterall, this is the angle the generally taller opposite gender is accustomed to (we're not talking about the Dutch audience here :-)
Going below the eye level produces all the effects described above, albeit on a minor scale, and can make breasts look larger.
3/4 body (from head to thighs):
optimal position: breast level
The negative effects of the headshot are virtually non existent due to the fact the face playing a much smaller part in the entire frame. It also give a proportional look the the mid body section, making for thinner waistline and narrower hips.
Going below accentuates waist/hips/thighs and may make the negative headshot effects more pronounced.
Full height:
optimal position: between the waistline and knees level. If you use a longer lens and shoot from a greater distance you may go lower. Makes legs look longer.
Shooting any higher (unless going for extreme angle like +45 degrees above the eye level or higher) "steals" the leg length and makes the subject hip or top heavy.
----
That's it. Or, as I summmed it up before, "the closer you get (to the subject/mountain top), the higher you go".
Those are rules. As with the Pirate Code, they are more like guidelines. They can and often shall be broken - as far as you understand the consequences.
HTH
Yes, it does affect the outdoor shooting significantly. Hence the need to scout/know your locations and clearly understand their advantages and disadantages for certain projects types.
In the end keep in mind one thing: nobody forces you to push that trigger button if you don't like what you see.
I know, the pressure can be high and you may just think, "oh well, maybe it's OK and I'll work it out in post". In some cases it does (again, you have to know when it does and when it does not), but mostly you would be simply fooling yourself and obliterate your media and HDD with the files that will never "the ligth of day" so to speak.
It does take a certain willpower to let your index finger off that trigger and say "nah, it's not working, let's do something else".
And that, right there, is the definition between truly professional and not. Point taken
Very much so! While I fully accept that rules are there for good reason, I'm one of those people who really needs to understand the "why" behind how they affect artistic choices (same in music), so all that theory is just what I needed. This is the first time a lot of those posing "rules" (lol at "pirate code") have actually made full sense to me, so your little precis above has provided a real "lightbulb" moment. It will probably take me some time to be able to *use* it the way I want to, but you've given me tons to think about. Thanks again!
You're welcome!
And, as I said, thease are just guidelines and theory about "vantage points for pleasant female portraiture". Imagine if we start changing some of the variables/goals and begin to consider more than vantage points, but the whole setup... So many combinations... Hence, it's kinda imperative to understand every individual component, what it does, so you can "process" any their combinations and chose what's right. And the only way I learned how to do it is by analysing gobs and gobs of images and deducing the individual components (posing, lighting, etc) behaviour, which then allowed me to resolve the reverse problem, i.e. to construct the cohesive set suitable for a particular task.
Some (many, in fact) of these deductions can be shaped as "rules", but their quanity quickly surparasses any mortal's ability to remember/comprehend, especially considering that many of the rules have fairly constrictive context of applicability...
On image #3 the flower on her shoulder on camera right just seems to be out of place and competing for focus with her face. I like the idea, just the placement of the blooms are a little irksome, perhaps if she took a step camera left it might not have worked but I think that the overall dispersion might have been better. (How to put this politely but the blooms seem to highlight the camera right breast...)
For Image #4 I can understand the working you did in PP. There still seems to be a little too much light on her rear end as my eye was drawn to that not to her face and over all shape. I agree with Nik that being a little lower might have helped. Also some of the building mold is a little distracting.
I still like the overall set and I think #1 is a definite keeper.
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I really like Number 1 and how you executed all of these images but I do have some ideas to help 3 and 5. i would suggest asking your model next time to pull her forehead towards (or "turtle") towards the camera, to eliminate the flat look you see, with no detail between her neck and chin. Moving her forehead to the camera accentuates the jawline, making the image much more flattering.
Other than that, great work, keep it up!
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Hillier, we were turtling all over the place, but she had trouble executing it and we got some really awkward shots that way; she tended to raise her eyebrows which gave us very tentative, not-confident looks rather than the strong engagement with the camera we wanted. Definitely one of my more challenging subjects - so beautiful, such a delightful person, but more ill-at-ease than anybody I've shot to date...
There are several ways to relax your model is she can't do it on her own. An ample supply of her favorite alcohol beverage is one thing, driving her to the point of exhaustion is another; a combination of both works even better!
Note: I do not necessarily condone these methods. I just say they work
Your days are filled with so much creativity, you are Blessed to be able to do what you love and what you are truly meant to do. I learn so much from your posts, I just wish I could learn faster !
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