Experimenting with Portraits

canonguy · April 3, 2005

I have been experimenting with portraits. Some I tried to be creative with lighting and perspective. Other's are straight portraits. I would really appreciate lots of constructive feedback.

My girlfriend graciously volounteered to model for me.

The first 4 were shot with a 420ez flash bounced off the ceiling with a halogen light off to the right. For all of these I used my 50mm f1.8. For the last pic I used an overhead halogen spot light with a gold relector underneath.

Thanks in advance

Khaos · April 3, 2005

I'm not a portrait photographer (yet:D ), so I can't give you pointers, but I will say I really like the rose shot.

davev · April 3, 2005

canonguy wrote:

I have been experimenting with portraits. Some I tried to be creative with lighting and perspective. Other's are straight portraits. I would really appreciate lots of constructive feedback.

My girlfriend graciously volounteered to model for me.

The first 4 were shot with a 420ez flash bounced off the ceiling with a halogen light off to the right. For all of these I used my 50mm f1.8. For the last pic I used an overhead halogen spot light with a gold relector underneath.

Thanks in advance

I don't take portrait pics, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

canonguy wrote:

I think if her legs were crossed the other way the pic would have been better.
The viewer would see 2 great legs, and there wouldn't be the size distortion
that I think there is now.

canonguy wrote:

I think the pose is good, I just don't like the top. It seems to tight and
leaves unflattering wrinkles.

canonguy wrote:

This shot IMO is this best. She's relaxed, the viewer sees her great legs, light
here and really in all of your pics is very nice.

canonguy wrote:

Another great shot, but, her necklace is a little distracting.

canonguy wrote:

This one for some reason I think if she would have looked into the camera,
it would be a better pic.

Remember, these are just my opinions. You have a great model, I'm sure
that the two of you will have fun trying more pics and poses.

dave.

rahmonster · April 3, 2005

I really love shot #3 and #4 myself. The lighting and the colour are great. #4 I think would work really well for a wedding shot, and I also think it wouls look great in black and white. And if it were me I'd try the last one in black and white too, just to see what the interesting lighting looks like.

adrian_k · April 4, 2005

I, along with everybody else, will put in the caveat that I'm no portrait photog. So here are my unqualified comments.

canonguy wrote:

The gold reflector is too much. Her face looks soft (out of focus?) or maybe that's just a factor of downsizing for the web.

her glasses really suit her face. A bit sturn.

A nice pose - I like this shot.
point the toes = lengthen the legs. It'd tidy up her feet a little.

my first thought was that it would have been better to have her lips in focus. But I thought that it was your intention to have her nose in focus as she's smelling the rose.

nice shot - It looks as though she's deep in thought while looking into a lamp.
The gold reflector works well here.
I think if she looked up (over her sunglasses) that'd be a great shot.

canonguy · April 4, 2005

I actually did one where she looked over the glasses, but the gold reflector made her eyes look yellow. Any suggestions on who to rework this one to make it better?

davev · April 4, 2005

canonguy wrote:

I actually did one where she looked over the glasses, but the gold reflector made her eyes look yellow. Any suggestions on who to rework this one to make it better?

I went after this picture for about a half an hour.
I tried to do a lot of different things, but what I wanted to do was to bring
her eyes and lips to the forefront of the picture.
I tried blurring, black and white, upping the contrast. Nothing looked right.

Then, I tried darkening the picture and reducing the contrast. It started to
look better. Then I blurred everything but her eyes and mouth. Looking
better still. Took the saturation down a bit, and removed the bright spots
in the background. After a small crop, I ended up with this.

I did brighten her eyes a bit also.
So, what do you think?

dave.

canonguy · April 5, 2005

davev wrote:

Then, I tried darkening the picture and reducing the contrast. It started to
look better. Then I blurred everything but her eyes and mouth. Looking
better still. Took the saturation down a bit, and removed the bright spots
in the background. After a small crop, I ended up with this.

I did brighten her eyes a bit also.
So, what do you think?

dave.

I like the strength and detail in the eyes and lips, but I think the rest is too dark. You gave me a great idea though and I going to readjust the white balance in the Photo and retweek based on what you got here.

THANKS!

canonguy · April 5, 2005

How is this one?

adrian_k · April 5, 2005

ok here's my go
I like the one where where she's looking down better, but anyway.....
I've lightened the whites of the eyes a little and lowered the red all over.

My version was literally 2minutes work and now it's been uploaded it shows
:-(

rutt · April 5, 2005

The color seems wrong in the shots with the sunglasses. Where they shot under incadescent (tungstem) light? Were they shot in raw? If so, try the "tungsten" WB option during conversion. If not, you can try flattening the magenta side of the A curve (a little) and the yellow side of the B curve (a lot) in LAB. Try and get roughly the same A and B values for her skin as in the properly balanced shots. Afterwards, a trip to CMYK to finetune the C and K curves is sometimes necessary.

PM me if you want more of this...

canonguy · April 5, 2005

rutt wrote:

The color seems wrong in the shots with the sunglasses. Where they shot under incadescent (tungstem) light? Were they shot in raw? If so, try the "tungsten" WB option during conversion. If not, you can try flattening the magenta side of the A curve (a little) and the yellow side of the B curve (a lot) in LAB. Try and get roughly the same A and B values for her skin as in the properly balanced shots. Afterwards, a trip to CMYK to finetune the C and K curves is sometimes necessary.

PM me if you want more of this...

All my shots are in raw. I was purposely trying to create a really warm feel with the gold reflector, but I guess I over did it. In the last one I did there, I flipped the WB to tungstun, and I played with the whites of the eyes to get them whiter without it being super dramatic, then I gave the iris a deep blue shade and I enhanced the detail in the lips while blurring out the rest of the pic. It's still not quite right though. The eyes are not white enough. The picture just looks link of murky. I'll give you approach a try when I get home later.

THANKS!!

mercphoto · April 5, 2005

canonguy wrote:

I'm going to go against the stream and say this photo looks much better as is, with her looking down. Sometimes the most powerful portraits are when a person is NOT looking at the camera.

canonguy · April 5, 2005

mercphoto wrote:

I'm going to go against the stream and say this photo looks much better as is, with her looking down. Sometimes the most powerful portraits are when a person is NOT looking at the camera.

That's my personal favorite too. I was just trying to figure out if I could make the looking into the camera one work. This exercise teaches me that even with great photoshop skills and post processing skills, nothing beats a proper planning and execution on composition and exposure during the the shoot.

In 4 months I have shot 10,000 shots with my Rebel (love it!). And all of my best pictures are the ones the required the least processing. Like Andy's KPOTD. His winner came straight out of the camera with no photoshop.

mercphoto · April 5, 2005

canonguy wrote:

This exercise teaches me that even with great photoshop skills and post processing skills, nothing beats a proper planning and execution on composition and exposure during the the shoot.

Bingo.

davev · April 6, 2005

canonguy wrote:

How is this one?

This looks good also. It all depends on what you personally like.
I liked the darker one as if to have the picture say that she's so cool,
that see can pull off wearing sun glasses in the dark. (blues brothers line)

Maybe none are great, but IMO we made it better.

dave.

canonguy · April 8, 2005

More Portrait Experiments... comments please
Here is another photo I took with my 50mm 1.8 lens (great lens for the money). Apature is wide open with a flash bounced off the ceiling. I shifted the WB all the way tungsten end. That's it as far as postprocessing.

Comments welcome!