Getting the smile

WirenWiren Registered Users Posts: 741 Major grins
edited December 2, 2016 in People
I've been working on my portrait shots.... using a green screen and my studio lights.... tough as I don't have any room in my home for the setup..... :rolleyes

I used to belong to a small studio in my suburb.... they have a nice sized classroom and as they had nothing going this last Saturday, they let me borrow it to set up my stuff. I offered free portraits to the artists whom I have befriended as a fellow gallery member and patron over the last few years.

I used my two Alien Bee 800's with softboxes and a flash gun to light the green screen with a second flashgun on a boom for a hair light... all wireless triggered via Paul Buff Tx/Rx units. Stool at least 8 feet away from the green screen wall. Main light camera left, fill on right..... sorry, forgot to take a set up shot.....

I wanted to more work on posing and working for the smile.... I always have trouble with stiff clients and getting them to stand the way I want, getting natural smiles and making them feel comfortable enough with me as a photographer to work easily with me.

Critique will be welcome if you have it......

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Lee Wiren

Comments

  • HackboneHackbone Registered Users Posts: 4,027 Major grins
    edited December 1, 2016
    You need to work on your exposures. Check your histogram or try a flash meter. On the first group of ladies your lighting them very broadly and this makes the face broad. You can tell by the 12 o'clock catch light. This high light shows all the facial faults and older folks have lots of facial faults especially the ladies won't like that. The catch lights say your using two lights or a light and reflector. If using two lights you need to try and keep 1 stop difference between the lights to give you some modeling of light. Again the cameras angle needs to be a bit higher. Keep creating images and posting. Hope some of this helps. If you have questions please ask.
  • ViennaVienna Registered Users Posts: 5 Big grins
    edited December 2, 2016
    The posing and camera angle (on all of them) seems on the money, but the strong white lighting is too harsh. I'd also bring the light source(s) slightly foward to get a bit less of a shadow across their faces. That being said, it seems as though you made your subjects comfortable enough to smile attractively. Nice job.
  • The LeaderThe Leader Registered Users Posts: 85 Big grins

    I thought they all look too bright and some of the backdrops look artificial.

  • TravelTravel Registered Users Posts: 276 Major grins

    The smiles are genuine enough. In my opinion, the camera height is low. We should probably talk about what is a close up portrait. A close up portrait is when the bottom of the chin to the top of the head is at least 1/2 of the frame vertically. A 3/4 length portrait includes hands and depending whether sitting or standing might include knees. In between close up portrait and 3/4 length is no man's land. Camera height for a close up portrait is generally the top of the head or above. The reason being that the head is closest to the camera. With the height that you have chosen, it seems like the chest is closest to the camera, which makes the chest bigger and the head smaller. With a higher camera height, it's easier to minimize problems underneath the chin. You know how to bring out happy expressions.

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