What do you shoot in a hurricane?
HEADSHOTS.
Had 8 mini-shoots scheduled for the acting class at the college where I teach. It was a marathon, but a lot of fun!! These were all taken in ONE hallway at the school. I had:
1 orange wall
1 brick wall
1 cream wall
1 glass brick wall
1 set of glass doors (which provide the backlight in some shots)
One of my goals was to make sure they didn't all look like they'd been taken in the same place; it was much harder work for me that way, but I'm pretty pleased on that score.
I used the 5dII which performed beautifully. *I* was an idiot and forgot to stop down a bit more (still thinking in crop terms - from now on I really MUST stop down to at least 3.2-4.0 unless I'm going for a very specific effect), but the camera really delivered. I'm in love with FF :lust
I'm also finally using my 85mm 1.8 almost all the time - it is the PERFECT portrait lens on FF (I never found that the case on crop). It's a fabulous length with just enough compression; add the fast AF and not-too-high shutter speeds required and it's just stellar. I use the other lenses too, of course, but this shoot was done almost entirely with the 85.
Light was as much natural as I could eke out of the dark sky, reflector, and flash in a 2x3' softbox as needed (= most of the time - it was raining and DARK outside all day as Sandy moved into town, so anything that looks like sun is a clever ruse on my part :rofl)
We didn't lose power yesterday (amazingly) so I managed to put together a "sneak peek" for the kids to tide them over until I can get their sets together. Two different looks for each of them (all my picks - this is their first look at them)
C&C always welcomed!!!
Had 8 mini-shoots scheduled for the acting class at the college where I teach. It was a marathon, but a lot of fun!! These were all taken in ONE hallway at the school. I had:
1 orange wall
1 brick wall
1 cream wall
1 glass brick wall
1 set of glass doors (which provide the backlight in some shots)
One of my goals was to make sure they didn't all look like they'd been taken in the same place; it was much harder work for me that way, but I'm pretty pleased on that score.
I used the 5dII which performed beautifully. *I* was an idiot and forgot to stop down a bit more (still thinking in crop terms - from now on I really MUST stop down to at least 3.2-4.0 unless I'm going for a very specific effect), but the camera really delivered. I'm in love with FF :lust
I'm also finally using my 85mm 1.8 almost all the time - it is the PERFECT portrait lens on FF (I never found that the case on crop). It's a fabulous length with just enough compression; add the fast AF and not-too-high shutter speeds required and it's just stellar. I use the other lenses too, of course, but this shoot was done almost entirely with the 85.
Light was as much natural as I could eke out of the dark sky, reflector, and flash in a 2x3' softbox as needed (= most of the time - it was raining and DARK outside all day as Sandy moved into town, so anything that looks like sun is a clever ruse on my part :rofl)
We didn't lose power yesterday (amazingly) so I managed to put together a "sneak peek" for the kids to tide them over until I can get their sets together. Two different looks for each of them (all my picks - this is their first look at them)
C&C always welcomed!!!
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Comments
WOW...
That young man in the two shots, upper right corner, has THE LOOK! You captured it perfectly. He really stands out from the rest to me, but most likely because of his personal presence and not because the others are lesser quality.
Novice, the gal you like was THE MOST challenging of the session. She's an interesting kid - as you say, classic features, a gorgeous smile, bright and with a really strong personality - but she just didn't present well; definitely a diamond in the rough, as it were. She did a fabulous job on her makeup (I keep seeing Monroe or lattter Judy Garland in that face and eyes), but her hair was an absolute mess and means I'm going to have to work like stink on her final shots to make t, but I have to ask....what part of "no strong patterns" wasn't clear??!?) Here's what I had to work with:
SOOC
I preferred the lighter colours in her own shirt, so I did some at the end of the session with it. By then, I'd figured out that the best I could do with her hair was push it out of the way, although I'm not 100% sold on that either. Annoyingly, I had considered taking a curling iron with me on the "just in case" principle, but I'm not a MUA and didn't feel comfortable offering that as a service, as it were (although it would have been very easy to put some waves in her hair, puff it up a little and get a much better, more polished look that went with her excellent - if a little extreme - makeup job)
Here's a before/after on one of those. Took WAY too long to clean it up, which is really frustrating since the problems were her end rather than mine. I think, overall, the gals did a really good job on their own MU and - with this one exception - hair (I'd done a brief session with them on what to do), but it sure is a pain to have to spend so long dealing with the hair in photoshop.....
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What was really cute was the reaction of the girl in the upper left corner - she's really lovely, but definitely a curvy girl and when I let her look at some of the better ones on the LCD screen she nearly cried she was so excited to see the results of the "weird positions" I was putting her in
Hack, most importantly glad you're ok! I know you're out on the Eastern Shore and wasn't sure how you'd fared. Glad to see you posting, since that means you must at least have power over there
However I am still amazed at what you were able to accomplish with your kit.
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That SOOC shot I included isn't one I like - I posted it only to show what I was working with as far as the messy hair etc. It was a poor angle choice of angle on my part too, for all the reasons you mention. Many shots - such as the ones in the collage, in the dark sweater - I posed her with arms away from body and to minimize the bustline. I just wish she had taken my advice on what to wear and taken some time with her hair; she's actually quite lovely, as you all have seen - she just didn't make it easy on me!