First Senior Portraits (in 5 years)

Blurmore

I haven't shot senior portraits since I managed a Lifetouch studio. A close friend of the family's daughter graduated (from college) and I offered. Artisitcally I'd say these are kinda stock. But I had fun with the process of a few. The shots on the background were with my 17-85 IS, all the rest with the 85 f1.8. All shot RAW and converted with ACR.



f1.8 ambient light, eyes sharpened independantly of the rest, gausian blur layer at 10 pixels screen 50% opacity. Channel mixer black and white 100% green +8 in blue and red. Eyes dodged, vignetted, and sloppy bordered.



not alot done here, slight sharpening and Tzone cleanup



this has a bunch of saturation stuff done to it, it was an imperfect shot to begin with because of bad light placement, it had to be opened up in the shadows a lot which killed the contrast. So I had fun with it.



just Tzone cleanup here, shaprneing, and slight soft focus effect.






just a tiny bit of sharpening.

It was fun, but I doubt I could handle doing it with high school kids.

C&C always welcome.

Owen

The first has a nice polaroid-ish feel to it. Like it a lot.

DF79

Nice shots. I really like the 2nd and 5th the best.

Nimai

I really appreciate the notes with each pic on what was done. Always interesting. Do you recall what you were using for lighting in the outdoor shots?
Also- this may expose me as the noob I'm already known to be, but- what's a Tzone and how do you clean it up?

Thanks!

Drea

Well Nimai, I am most likely more of a noob than you, but I am going to guess the T-zone he is refering to is the the area of a persons face that tends to build up oil which reflects easily on photographs.

Trace two lines on your face start from in between your eyebrows to the tip of your nose and the second line from one cheekbone across your nose to your other cheekbone and that is a person's "T-zone".

(Blurmore please tell me if I am way off course here and thinking to much like a woman rather than a photographer.)

So I am thinking what he means by cleaning it up, he is using photoshop cloning tool and healing brush tool to take the shine off her face.


Drea

Drea

Just wanted to add I totally love the first shot, her eyes look amazing!

Drea

Blurmore

Nimai wrote:

I really appreciate the notes with each pic on what was done. Always interesting. Do you recall what you were using for lighting in the outdoor shots?
Also- this may expose me as the noob I'm already known to be, but- what's a Tzone and how do you clean it up?

Thanks!

Drea was right, and maybe I was thinking too much like a woman :P by laying this terminology on ya. She had a shiny forehead, nose and cheeks.

For the studio background shot I used 1 alien bee 800 in a Westcott Halo softbox on the right. For fill I used a second alien bee barebulb on the left and rotated away from the subject about 160 degrees. I used a vivitar 3900 handle flash on floor behind herto illuminate the background.


The outdoor (except for the black and white) was lit with 1 alien bee in the halo, and the vivitar on a stand behind and to the left of the subject out of frame as a backlight/hairlight.

Thanks for commenting!

tomthephotographer

Great Work
Lighting works for me as well
Thank you

erich6

Nice portraits. I like the notes on what you did with each also. Good job retouching these. Composition is good in all of them except the 3rd one. I know this is a salvaged shot but I'm looking for a bit more at the bottom on the right. The shot with the cap and gown could be improved if she wasn't squared off against the camera view (turn her torso sideways a bit and make her turn her face toward the camera).

Erich