QVMS Wrestling - Part 2

Dreadnote

So, our wrestling season ended and we had the end of the season banquet. In exchange for helping the coaches and providing a few 4x6 team photos to the kids (which I like doing anyway - so it is no real inconvenience), the coaches let me hawk these individual athlete portraits to the parents at the banquet.

I promised I'd put up a few more when I posted the first one about a month ago when I had finished them after the orders were put in, so here are a few more of the 14 total that I thought turned out ok (you know , for what they are - though Cubans 365 project has convinced me that I need to work out my lighting quite a bit more in the future:D)

1)


2)


3)


4)


5)
The complimentary "Team Photo" - a bit of a variation on the traditional (and a bit off center as well as some other things as it turns out - its like herding squirrels)

Dreadnote

For starters, I have to flag the speedlights in back. The lights are hitting their noses, and it doesn't look quite right.

anonymouscuban

I set it before... these are freaking awesome and I'd bet good money the boys flip over them. #2 is my fav of the bunch. I think the composite looks the most real in that one. I wish I could see the team photo huge, like a poster size print. I don't think the small size does it justice. Just one thing, the kid on the very far right... his head looks ginormous! Not sure if you blended him in but it looks quite funny. .

I can't imagine herding all these boys but you did a great job. I spent a few minutes looking at all the faces in the team shot and they all have such great expressions. They really seem to have been willing participants. Not always easy with kids this age. They tend to be so apathetic.

Dreadnote

anonymouscuban wrote: »

I set it before... these are freaking awesome and I'd bet good money the boys flip over them. #2 is my fav of the bunch. I think the composite looks the most real in that one. I wish I could see the team photo huge, like a poster size print. I don't think the small size does it justice. Just one thing, the kid on the very far right... his head looks ginormous! Not sure if you blended him in but it looks quite funny. .

I can't imagine herding all these boys but you did a great job. I spent a few minutes looking at all the faces in the team shot and they all have such great expressions. They really seem to have been willing participants. Not always easy with kids this age. They tend to be so apathetic.

Thanks again for the comments! Your right about the head of the kid on the right. He is suffering from the outside edge of my wide angle lens. I forget but I think it was about 14mm or so. As to #2 can you be more specific? Does it have something the others don't or is it missing something I should leave out of the others? Perhaps just the proportions of the kid to the background? He seems to have the least amount of back glow added to him, maybe I need to turn it down on the others? Or perhaps overall brightness of the subject compared to the background?

Thanks again for looking at them!

anonymouscuban

Lets see if I can be any more specific than "it just feels right".

First, I think in general, his expression and pose is the best. I also think the lighting on his face is best. No distracting highlights or deep shadows like in some of the others. I think scale wise, he seems to feel the most real out of all of them. Also, the position of his feet and the shadows look real. He doesn't look like he's floating, or the other way, blending/sinking into the ground. #3 is done well in this sense too. Lastly, I think the rim-light fits the best with the background lights. If you look at all the other guys, they have some highlight on the front of their arms that just don't seem like they'd be there if the rim light was being created by the lights in the BG. #2 has none of those highlight issues.

Does that help?

Dreadnote

anonymouscuban wrote: »

Lets see if I can be any more specific than "it just feels right".

First, I think in general, his expression and pose is the best. I also think the lighting on his face is best. No distracting highlights or deep shadows like in some of the others. I think scale wise, he seems to feel the most real out of all of them. Also, the position of his feet and the shadows look real. He doesn't look like he's floating, or the other way, blending/sinking into the ground. #3 is done well in this sense too. Lastly, I think the rim-light fits the best with the background lights. If you look at all the other guys, they have some highlight on the front of their arms that just don't seem like they'd be there if the rim light was being created by the lights in the BG. #2 has none of those highlight issues.

Does that help?

Yes! Actually that does help. Im going to fiddle with the shadows a tad. As to the highlights, and the way the rim lights are "over-wrapping", not much to be done about that for this time around, but basketball season is here and now, and Im going to work on taming them before I shoot the basketball team.

ian408

These are all pretty cool. I think you did a nice job and provided something a little bit different.

Dreadnote

Thanks Ian, i appreciate it.

anonymouscuban

Dread... I want to make sure you understand that my nits are from a photographer's eye. I seriously doubt any of the kids or their parents or anyone else looking at them that is not a photog will care or notice anything I pointed out. Quite the contrary. I think they will be freaking stoked by these shots. I've seen hundreds of team photos and they pale in comparison to these. These are very unique and have that cool, edgy feeling that kids will freaking love.

Dreadnote

Changed the picture links to larger ones. I didn't realize that if you "collect" photos into a gallery to share hereon Dgrin (or if you collect them for other reasons), even if the gallery into which they have been collected allows for "X2" picture links, if the original gallery from which they came only allows for "L" the picture size will be constrained to the "L" size even though you may have selected the "X2" or "X3" link to share. So, I made copies instead. Seems like that worked.

Dreadnote

anonymouscuban wrote: »

Dread... I want to make sure you understand that my nits are from a photographer's eye. I seriously doubt any of the kids or their parents or anyone else looking at them that is not a photog will care or notice anything I pointed out. Quite the contrary. I think they will be freaking stoked by these shots. I've seen hundreds of team photos and they pale in comparison to these. These are very unique and have that cool, edgy feeling that kids will freaking love.

I understand that and I appreciate the time that you have taken to look at the photos. But nit picking is exactly what I want. I agree that the kids will no doubt be happy hanging these in their rooms and what not, but I want to grow and develop a wider skill set. Working for a school district I have a somewhat unique access and ability to relationship build with the students, their families, the coaches, and the administrators. I want my portfolio to be something that they are all clamoring for. As it is we have 2 Middle Schools that feed our high school. I intend to expand from the school where I am now to the other Middle School and the High School for senior pics and grungy athlete portraits. I am hoping to have even their family members who might have some "opinions" about photography to be impressed. So keep right on pointing out things from "a photographer's eye". That is what I need.