(Non-erotic) teen model

Nikolai

Helen was going to a BD party. She had some time before the pick-up, so we decided to spend it for a little improptu photoshoot.

Here are a few samples.

#1:


#2:


#3:


#4:


#5:


Gear: Canon 20D + 50mm f/1.8
Settings: ISO 100, full manual 1/125s at f/2.0..f2.2
Light: Sunpak Auto 555EX at 1/64 + brollybox + PW.

The rest is here: http://nik.smugmug.com/gallery/1306157

Enjoy shooting your own kids!

Stormdancing

Very nice Nikolai. She is beautiful. That last one is perfect.

Nikolai

Thanks, Dana!

Stormdancing wrote:

Very nice Nikolai. She is beautiful. That last one is perfect.

I like her myself:-) . Besides, she seems to be the only person in the whole wide world who's OK with daddy's photo-ob-sessions and is usually eager to pose/model.
Cheers!

Stormdancing

Well you're lucky. My son will soon be 4 and he's already fed up with Mom poking the camera in his face. He either hides or puts his fingers in his mouth and pulls the corners out while he sticks out his tongue.I've ruined him for life..........................

Owen

#3 has it. Cropping is a bit awkward on #4 and the pose on #5 isn't flattering.

Nikolai

Owen,

Owen wrote:

#3 has it. Cropping is a bit awkward on #4 and the pose on #5 isn't flattering.

Thank you, sir!
I appreciate the C&C!
Cheers!

Frost

Nice shots all, but get her to be a little more expressive. A small smile (almost smirk) in #2 would have made it a very interesting shot in my opinion. I'm sure she has a smile that just would light up the room.

kdog

#1 and #3 do it for me. I like the lighting in #1. It gives her an almost mysterious work. Very pretty young lady. I'm sure she favors her mom. :giggle

Nikolai

Frost,

Frost wrote:

Nice shots all, but get her to be a little more expressive. A small smile (almost smirk) in #2 would have made it a very interesting shot in my opinion. I'm sure she has a smile that just would light up the room.

Thanks for watching/commenting!
She was in her "misterious" mood at the time, so I just went with the flow. : Besides, she still wears braces and those sometimes can be a nuissanase for the portrait...
I hope I'll have another chance to do it with the smile, too:-)
Cheers!

Nikolai

Thanks, KD!

kdog wrote:

#1 and #3 do it for me. I like the lighting in #1. It gives her an almost mysterious work. Very pretty young lady. I'm sure she favors her mom. :giggle

It was mostly "play with lighting" kinda thing, so I'm glad some of it (like #1) delivers what I was "shooting for" :-)

[rant] I like my wireless setup a lot, but I do start to have a feeling that I probably need something more advanced for the studio work - hotlights or at least strobes with pilots. It's kinda hard to imagine what light/shadows you gonna have with ordinary strobe, let alone with multiple ones.. [/rant]

Cheers!

Frost

Nikolai wrote:

Thanks for watching/commenting!
She was in her "misterious" mood at the time, so I just went with the flow. : Besides, she still wears braces and those sometimes can be a nuissanase for the portrait...
I hope I'll have another chance to do it with the smile, too:-)
Cheers!

Braces are hard to deal with but the "small" smile I referr to is just sort of a slight turned up of the corner of the mouth. It affect that side of the face and eyes a bit and you just have to see it at the moment to see if it would work. Sometimes it does and sometimes not. I'm not there, so I can only make little subtle suggestions, it's your pic and they do look mysterious in their own light and THEY are very well done!!

Nikolai

Vern,

Frost wrote:

...they do look mysterious in their own light and THEY are very well done!!

Thanks! Appreciate it!
Cheers!

chrisjlee

Beautiful photos!

I think the last one is best because butterfly lighting trumps all.

What F stop was that?

Nikolai

Chris,

chrisjlee wrote:

Beautiful photos!

I think the last one is best because butterfly lighting trumps all.

What F stop was that?

Thanks for watching! for some reasons Butterfly was my last choice and I only had time for a few shots with it. Glad you liked it!

That particular one was f/2.2. If you go to the gallery (I mentioned it in the original post) you can see the exifs for any shot (especially if you switch to recently added Critique mode:-)

Cheers!

windoze

they're all very nice and she is a beautiful girl!
But... #4 IMHO, stands out as the best! I cant explain why - but it does

as you know, you are blessed!
troy

Scott_Quier

These are all very nice. How does one choose the "best"?

AntoineD

Second one is really working well , constrast's nice, the pose, too.

To me, others are either very flat or unflattering.
Beware of young ladies' nose

binghott

#3 is excellent. it's so sharp it hurts. i mean that in the good way, it doesn't look over sharpened either.

Mitchell

While I think the lighting on these is great, the cropping on these pictures make them dull and uninteresting.

1, 2, and 5 are all to centered for my taste.

3 has distracting fingers at the bottom and too much headroom at the top. A tighter crop would fix these and make this one a winner.

4 also has way too much negative space up top.

Recrop and repost. I bet you will be surprised.

System

Mitchell wrote:

While I think the lighting on these is great, the cropping on these pictures make them dull and uninteresting.

1, 2, and 5 are all to centered for my taste.

3 has distracting fingers at the bottom and too much headroom at the top. A tighter crop would fix these and make this one a winner.

4 also has way too much negative space up top.

Recrop and repost. I bet you will be surprised.

beautiful girl and neat photos-

while I don't agree that these are dull and uninteresting, I too would like to see some recrops-

did not see this first time around and glad they were revisited-

AntoineD

gefillmore wrote:

I too would like to see some recrops-

I think reshooting would much more valuable than recropping :uhoh

Nikolai

Wow, guys!
Quite a comeback for such an old post...:):
I'm not sure if she agrees to reshoot (besides, she's a teen, they change fast, she looks totally different now:-), but I think I owe you guys a re-processing :-)
Luckily, I shot RAW and RAWflow is my friend..:-)
So, stay tuned, I may post "take two" some time soon

Once again. thank you all for the C&C!

Nikolai

As promised
Re-cropped and reprocessed..

#1:



#2:



#3:



#4:



Any better?

AntoineD

Nikolai wrote:

Re-cropped and reprocessed..

Any better?

Hum, to my opinion : no (don't hit me ).

I do think you should try to get the same density, the same white balance from one picture to another when shooting a series. Some look flat, other don't, skin tones are good for some, but there are greeny on another... I even think the first process was better

rosselliot

on #3 - her fingers in the bottom right corner are distracting. her pointer finger looks cut off and I think they should be photoshoped out, it's be really easy to stamp them out. I know it's a tiny part of it, but it's noticeable if you're OCD.....:D

- RE