Playing around with studio portraits

Jeff_Milo

Hi All,

I dont normally do a lot of studio type portraits, but wanted to give my new off camera flashes and background a try so I recruted my favorite model to pose for her dad. She insisted on her version of bridal shots in her ariel princess dress. Man am I going to have my hands full when she gets old enough to date (I'm thinking not until she's 30 :help )

Would very much appreciate any C&C you may have on the crops, compo, lighting or just the pictures in general

Thanks for looking!!
1.


2.


3.


4.



5.

Rhinotherunt

Jeff,

I am sure these would be BEAUTIFUL, but they are underexposed and lacking contrast.

Jeff_Milo

Ryan,

Thanks for the comments. The underexposure was somewhat intentional, I was trying for a dark classic kind of feel. Didn't get there did I? Will have to go back into PS and play with the exposure some more tonight. Still have so much to learn about off camera lighting.

Rhinotherunt

FlashPhotoBoy wrote:

Ryan,

Thanks for the comments. The underexposure was somewhat intentional, I was trying for a dark classic kind of feel. Didn't get there did I? Will have to go back into PS and play with the exposure some more tonight. Still have so much to learn about off camera lighting.

Do you have an example of what your are trying to achieve? Somethng to compare your results to?

Richard

FlashPhotoBoy wrote:

Ryan,

Thanks for the comments. The underexposure was somewhat intentional, I was trying for a dark classic kind of feel. Didn't get there did I? Will have to go back into PS and play with the exposure some more tonight. Still have so much to learn about off camera lighting.

I thought it might have been intentional. They don't look underexposed to me, more like an old canvas that hasn't been cleaned for decades (except for #1). Edit: Sorry, that came out snarkier than I intended. Read on.

You might want to look again at Rembrandt, for example. While the overall canvas is often dark, there is still tremendous dynamic range in the highlights, which is lacking here. I think you have some good shots here and if you re-process them to improve the contrast they will look very nice. Maybe not what you were aiming for,

Shudderz

FlashPhotoBoy wrote:

Ryan,

Thanks for the comments. The underexposure was somewhat intentional, I was trying for a dark classic kind of feel. Didn't get there did I? Will have to go back into PS and play with the exposure some more tonight. Still have so much to learn about off camera lighting.

Your daughter is adorable. For the longest time my daughter believed us when we told her she couldn't date til she was 25.

Do you have a light meter? Learning to capture the right exposure in camera is the place to start, not in learning how to try and "Fix" an image in photoshop. Especially with off camera lighting and studio shots!

I also think the white balance in number one is off.....it's pretty yellow.

I can't live without my light meter and expo disc (for white balance)

Nikolai

Jeff,
congrats on new lights/bg!
I think you could have used a little bit more power. All pics seem to be underexposed by half a stop at least :-(
WB also seems to be a bit off. It's easy to fix in post, though.

ChatKat

Invite
Jeff,

You are more than welcome to come play in my studio with me if you want to travel a bit to play with lighting....I have the Sunpaks that I have been wanting to have a play date with as well as some monoblocks...

joshhuntnm

I agree they are dark and need contrast--especially the last one. The first one is best, to me. Need POP!

Jeff_Milo

Thank you all for the very helpful feedback!!

Richard had it pretty close to pegged, when I was taking these I had an old canvas painting in mind and tried to leave them dark, wish I had an example to show you but it was an image I had stuck in my head. My wife has been wanting painting treated photos of the kids on canvas for a while now so the goal was to get as close as possible in camera and then add treatments in PS.

After reading all of your feedback I completely agree they really lacked contrast so I went back and took another shot at a couple of them. Below is one revised photo and two treated to look like final product. Do they look any better?

ps..... I so much prefer natural light - lol

Corrected (hopefully)


Treated


Tighter crop treated

Jeff_Milo

ChatKat wrote:

Jeff,

You are more than welcome to come play in my studio with me if you want to travel a bit to play with lighting....I have the Sunpaks that I have been wanting to have a play date with as well as some monoblocks...

Kathy,

I am most deffinatly going to have to take you up on this offer!! Things have been crazy around her the last few weeks, I got a call from the head wedding coordinator at Disney asking for a few pictures of the flowers from the wedding I shot at Disneyland back in November for a prospective B&G to see the arrangements. I directed her to my site to pick the pictures and while reviewing them she loved the images and invited me to come in and present my work to their staff to be included on their prefered photographers list. So I have been going through all the images trying to make them as perfect as possible and putting together an album for them to have on file. As soon as all this calms down I will have to give you a call to come over and play. I really need the studio practice. Thank you so much for the invite!!!

Nikolai

FlashPhotoBoy wrote:

...she loved the images and invited me to come in and present my work to their staff to be included on their prefered photographers list. ...

Wow, Jeff, this is neat! Congratulations!
I guess Shay's advise "shoot the venue" paid up big time:-)

Jeff_Milo

Thanks Nik..... it came completely out of the blue, guess the B&G never gave her the password to look at the galleries before now, and only reason she needed to see pics of that particular flower arrangement was that the prospective Bride is allergic to every flower except that one. She remembered that wedding and found the card I had given her..... crazy how things come back around. Looks like I am going to have to start putting together all that advertising/marketing material I have been putting off for so long. Whish I could get ahold of Shay, would hire Jen to put it all together.

On a side note, if I can't convince the wife the 10-22mm is a necessary purchase I will take you up on the offer to borrow it for the Yosemite trip.

Thanks!!!!!

Nikolai

FlashPhotoBoy wrote:

Thanks Nik..... it came completely out of the blue, guess the B&G never gave her the password to look at the galleries before now, and only reason she needed to see pics of that particular flower arrangement was that the prospective Bride is allergic to every flower except that one. She remembered that wedding and found the card I had given her..... crazy how things come back around. Looks like I am going to have to start putting together all that advertising/marketing material I have been putting off for so long. Whish I could get ahold of Shay, would hire Jen to put it all together.

On a side note, if I can't convince the wife the 10-22mm is a necessary purchase I will take you up on the offer to borrow it for the Yosemite trip.

Thanks!!!!!

Keep us posted how it's going. Disney is a cool account to have!

foxwizard

I like #2 as originally posted. The underlighing actually enhances the mood, IMHO.

ChatKat

Yep
Hey Jeff, let me know when it works - give me a call. Yes, I too wish Shay was still available. That was a great class. I do have most of it together but it's taken months to get each thing just right. And there is always more. I needed some help - felt some things were still missing - and took another class (week long) and got all my gaps covered and I have some images being published by Kodak. Every day I get a call or two.

Great stuff re Disney. Yay!

IFS08

the 2 correct ones are stunnig now. The 3rd looks like its pixelated. But #1 is priceless. A+++

FlashPhotoBoy wrote:

Thank you all for the very helpful feedback!!

Richard had it pretty close to pegged, when I was taking these I had an old canvas painting in mind and tried to leave them dark, wish I had an example to show you but it was an image I had stuck in my head. My wife has been wanting painting treated photos of the kids on canvas for a while now so the goal was to get as close as possible in camera and then add treatments in PS.

After reading all of your feedback I completely agree they really lacked contrast so I went back and took another shot at a couple of them. Below is one revised photo and two treated to look like final product. Do they look any better?

ps..... I so much prefer natural light - lol

Corrected (hopefully)


Treated


Tighter crop treated