Yes? No? or Maybe? C&C please...

Dreadnote

Here is a first attempt at individual soccer portraits. No doubt quite a bit of room to improve. This is a Middle School kid aged somewhere in the 11-13 range. Opinions? More to come as I finish them...

1)

anonymouscuban

Really like this. I have some minor nits on your strobe work but honestly, they aren't worth mentioning. Reminds me a little of Joel Grimes stuff. I'm sure this kids going to be stoked. I can see a large poster size of this hanging on his wall in his room. Very cool.

Dreadnote

anonymouscuban wrote: »

Really like this. I have some minor nits on your strobe work but honestly, they aren't worth mentioning. Reminds me a little of Joel Grimes stuff. I'm sure this kids going to be stoked. I can see a large poster size of this hanging on his wall in his room. Very cool.

Thanks for the compliments. I agree, I have nits about the strobe work too, was trying out a new Einstein controlled by a pocket wizard power mc2, and it was weirding out on me. Modeling light going on and off and some other stuff. So I got close as I could with the time I had. I think when they say don't plug the pocket wizard in with the power on they really mean is don't plug the pocket wizard in with the einstein unit plugged into the wall at all. Serves me right for not doing more practice at home with the new gear before using it. Oh well I'll get it working soon enough I suspect.

anonymouscuban

Dreadnote wrote: »

Thanks for the compliments. I agree, I have nits about the strobe work too, was trying out a new Einstein controlled by a pocket wizard power mc2, and it was weirding out on me. Modeling light going on and off and some other stuff. So I got close as I could with the time I had. I think when they say don't plug the pocket wizard in with the power on they really mean is don't plug the pocket wizard in with the einstein unit plugged into the wall at all. Serves me right for not doing more practice at home with the new gear before using it. Oh well I'll get it working soon enough I suspect.

Care to share your light setup?

kdog

Love it. Looks like two lights to me, on either side of the boy.

anonymouscuban

kdog wrote: »

Love it. Looks like two lights to me, on either side of the boy.

Yup. Same thing I thought. I think the best light setup for this would be 3 lights. Two to either side but slightly behind and one in front for slight fill. Of course, this poses a problem since the light to his left would be in the shot. You'd have to either composite him entirely into the scene or take a shot without him it in and then blend the light out of the photo.

I think the 3 light setup would yield the most natural looking light for this since he's being lit from all sides. Joel Grimes uses a 3 light setup almost exclusively.

****BUT again, just being picky here. I think the shot is really freaking great as is and that kid is going to go bonkers when he sees it. Totally kickass shot.

Pono Photo

The kid is going to freak out when he see this! You should tell us his reaction. i would love to know.

Hackbone

Really like this one. Can you put some motion into the ball? My nit is the light area right in the middle that takes away from the subject. Wish the clouds can down alot more.

jpc

Really well done. I'm guessing the dodging on the horizon was to help the transition from the bottom half of the shot (actual background) from the sky, which was dropped in. I think it works very well. Ball motion would be an improvement, but no biggie, imo. Great job!

Dooginfif20

I think its totally awesome! I agree with Alex that it has a Joel Grimes feel to it. The only nit I have is his right arm and leg are underexposed. I guess I just wish they were a tad bit brighter.

Dreadnote

anonymouscuban wrote: »

Care to share your light setup?

Lights were as follows: 1 Einstein in a 22 inch beauty dish boomed right in front down angle 20-30 degrees. One SB900 on either side, no mods, up on stands about a foot higher then the players head height and angled down a bit. Though as I said the einstein was going weird on me. So the lighting implementation was considerably less than optimal. (of course that is mostly an excuse, even if it had been working, there would have been issues) I'm going to run the unit through its paces this weekend to see if it was the unit or something stupid I did. ATM the high odds are for the latter.

Pono Photo wrote: »

The kid is going to freak out when he see this! You should tell us his reaction. i would love to know.

I certainly will, I can't wait to find out myself

Hackbone wrote: »

Really like this one. Can you put some motion into the ball? My nit is the light area right in the middle that takes away from the subject. Wish the clouds can down alot more.

Thats a great idea to have motion in the ball. I'm going to try and see if I can pull that off. As for the light spot in the middle, I added a gradient to mask out the fact that I live in a bit of a trailer trash town with lots of busted cars and chain link everywhere and other distracting ugly spots. Perhaps there is a better solution?

jpc wrote: »

Really well done. I'm guessing the dodging on the horizon was to help the transition from the bottom half of the shot (actual background) from the sky, which was dropped in. I think it works very well. Ball motion would be an improvement, but no biggie, imo. Great job!

Correct, the sky was dropped in, but then again so was everything else. I was attempting to follow a compositing "recipe" out of a book. The player and ball were shot separately in our gym, the field in the early A.M. and the sky is a stock photo from one of the books I've been reading.

Dooginfif20 wrote: »

I think its totally awesome! I agree with Alex that it has a Joel Grimes feel to it. The only nit I have is his right arm and leg are underexposed. I guess I just wish they were a tad bit brighter.

Yes turns out that one of the many things I have a somewhat imperfect understanding of is the light spread on my new beauty dish. Didn't notice his arm was not in the "sweet spot" when I was shooting it, but perhaps I can lighten it up a bit. I'll give it a try and see what happens. The inspiration, if thats what you want to call it, came from here as you guessed:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joelgrimesphotography/3223431315/

Mostly I was just trying to copy it.:D For some reason his came out better.

Thanks again everyone for all the input. It seems like every time I go out to shoot I am reminding myself of what not to forget and invariably I forget something and discover 10 new things not to forget , but I sure do enjoy the process.

Mike J

Nicely done. I really like this. Definitely caught the essence of Joel Grimes here.

Quincy T

Dooginfif20 wrote: »

I think its totally awesome! I agree with Alex that it has a Joel Grimes feel to it. The only nit I have is his right arm and leg are underexposed. I guess I just wish they were a tad bit brighter.

This is my primary nit as well. The heavy fog kind of creates this strange separation between sky and earth, that's strange also.

But, however, and a big however, as everyone else said the player and his parents will be very excited about this. That's all you can hope to achieve!

Dooginfif20

After looking at the two you pretty much nailed it. You have inspired me to shoot stuff like this when I get home (currently deployed) and I am looking at getting another light. How would you rate the Einstein vs. the AB1600?

Hackbone

I've heard stories about people who have both and the bees seem to be built tougher than the Einsteins.

Dooginfif20

Well I am looking to add to my lights. I am gonna keep both my AB1600 and AB800. Just looking for a third light so I can do shots like this.

zoomer

I like the idea.
Unfortunately the areas that are featured are not any of the subjects.
Next time accent the foreground instead of the background. My eye went straight to the bright background, then I searched around the frame for the subjects, which are the boy and the ball.