Roshan (portrait exercises with white shirt and dark skin)

NeilL · June 28, 2008

C&C welcome! Which do you think is best?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for looking!

Neil

Shot with Canon 40D, 24-70mm f2.8L, 580EX II

1pocket · June 28, 2008

Well, his face is lit with a smile #4, plus this has good point of view for a youth.

I also would go with #7 for the more pensive look. I prefer it out of the non-smile shots.

What did you do for white balance? It seems like there are subtle variations.

geospatial_junkie · June 28, 2008

I like #1 because it isn't completely straight on. I also like the expression and lighting, especially in his eyes. Also, I would choose #6 as it is a classic masculine look. It gives him a very dignified look. I also like #4 as a nice candid shot. It completely humanizes your subject and shows a completely different side of him.

What I don't like about the other portraits!
- I'm not a fan of #5 as it is a split profile. The nose appears to jut out and the left eye is cut-off.
- #2 has prominant lines under his eyes
- #7 appears to be very linear and straight on to me.
- #8 is an interesting angle and could be cool to work with!!! Unfortunately, in this case, the light on the subject is positioned in such a way that prominantly displays the shadows under his eyes (keep trying this angle as it could be a keeper next time!).

I actually like your variations in the white balance. It gives your environment a completely different mood. Overall, this was an excellent session!

http://cartographica.smugmug.com

Nikolai · June 28, 2008

Hi Neil,
Nice shooting!

Since it's an exercise anyway I think it would help a lot of people tremendously if you could provide extra details on each shot, such as: exposure data, focal length, lights location/power setting/modifiers used, etc.
Just a thought:-)

Flyinggina · June 28, 2008

This is not a technical critique, which I leave to others more knowledgeable than I. It is simply the response of a viewer.

I think the entire set is gorgeous. What a handsome young man and a great subject. I like them all and don't mind the shadows under his eyes in some or the fact that in some cases you may have broken a rule of portraiture (#5, for example, which I like as is).

It is hard to chose favorites, #7 is wonderful and #4 is charming. I am taken with #3 for some reason - his expression seems to challenge the viewer somehow. I think on that one, I would have liked the contrast in lighting between the two sides of his face to have been even more dramatic. The expression could certainly support it. But that is a quibble.

Virginia

beetle8 · June 28, 2008

#4

NeilL · June 28, 2008

Nikolai wrote:

Hi Neil,
Nice shooting!
Since it's an exercise anyway I think it would help a lot of people tremendously if you could provide extra details on each shot, such as: exposure data, focal length, lights location/power setting/modifiers used, etc.
Just a thought:-)

And a good thought it is, too. Thanks.

Below are links to exif data for each shot in order.

Ambient lighting in a small sitting room (daylight through a window, room lights, both fluorescent and incandescent) was main light source, with bounce flash for fill and definition - the grand plan, anyway

I really like using ambient light, from as many different sources as possible.

One obvious challenge was getting someway decent exposure of both a new and very white shirt (a birthday present which he wanted to wear) and of his dark chocolate skin. A challenge which I struggled with, and didn't quite meet in a couple of the shots, as you can see. As you can also see in the exif data, WB was auto. I grabbed at all the possibilities of opening and drawing curtains, turning lights on and off, angling the flash this way and that, and shifting him and myself to try to get results.

In PP, I used both Bibble and DxO for highlight recovery and other exposure adjustments, a plugin in Bibble for tone adjustments, LightZone for selective sharpening and lighting, and PS for final high pass sharpening (which I might have overdone, I'm afraid).

Although both Bibble and DxO describe using channels with recoverable data in blownout highlights as the basis of their highlight recovery tool, I found DxO's process resulted in an ugly roughening of texture at high settings, and Bibble's introduced color artifacts.

And so the learning goes on!

Nikolai · June 28, 2008

Thanks a lot, Neil, very educational!

ALSO: great job on WB under very difficult light mix!

NeilL · June 28, 2008

1pocket wrote:

Well, his face is lit with a smile #4, plus this has good point of view for a youth.

I also would go with #7 for the more pensive look. I prefer it out of the non-smile shots.

What did you do for white balance? It seems like there are subtle variations.

Thanks for your comments 1pocket. Please see above for more info about the shots.

Neil

NeilL · June 28, 2008

geospatial_junkie wrote:

I like #1 because it isn't completely straight on. I also like the expression and lighting, especially in his eyes. Also, I would choose #6 as it is a classic masculine look. It gives him a very dignified look. I also like #4 as a nice candid shot. It completely humanizes your subject and shows a completely different side of him.

What I don't like about the other portraits!
- I'm not a fan of #5 as it is a split profile. The nose appears to jut out and the left eye is cut-off.
- #2 has prominant lines under his eyes
- #7 appears to be very linear and straight on to me.
- #8 is an interesting angle and could be cool to work with!!! Unfortunately, in this case, the light on the subject is positioned in such a way that prominantly displays the shadows under his eyes (keep trying this angle as it could be a keeper next time!).

I actually like your variations in the white balance. It gives your environment a completely different mood. Overall, this was an excellent session!

http://cartographica.smugmug.com

Very much appreciate your careful comments and helpful ideas, g_j. Some of your ideas about composition-posing I had not thought about, so have given me a little more depth to draw on in the future. Thank you!

Neil

NeilL · June 28, 2008

Flyinggina wrote:

This is not a technical critique, which I leave to others more knowledgeable than I. It is simply the response of a viewer.

I think the entire set is gorgeous. What a handsome young man and a great subject. I like them all and don't mind the shadows under his eyes in some or the fact that in some cases you may have broken a rule of portraiture (#5, for example, which I like as is).

It is hard to chose favorites, #7 is wonderful and #4 is charming. I am taken with #3 for some reason - his expression seems to challenge the viewer somehow. I think on that one, I would have liked the contrast in lighting between the two sides of his face to have been even more dramatic. The expression could certainly support it. But that is a quibble.

Virginia

Very pleased you got some enjoyment from the set, Virginia. That's the whole idea! And thanks for your comments!

Yes, he's a good looking kid, and he also likes to take photos - with his phone at present! In any case, he immediately understood my very spare (and inexperienced) directions and intuited for himself how his poses which he mainly chose himself would result in the shot.

He did take some coaxing to smile, however, preferring the Marlon Brando tradition!

Neil

NeilL · June 28, 2008

beetle8 wrote:

#4

You get the door prize!

Neil

cmorganphotography · June 28, 2008

6, 7, and 9 look the best to me with light, position, eyes, shirt, and contrast.
They were the ones that grabbed me.

NeilL · June 28, 2008

cmorganphotography wrote:

6, 7, and 9 look the best to me with light, position, eyes, shirt, and contrast.
They were the ones that grabbed me.

Glad to grab you!

Neil

Awais Yaqub · June 28, 2008

I like them very nice !

anwmn1 · June 28, 2008

Neil-

These are not technical critiques just my impression of the shots.....

1. at first it really grabbed me because it is very vibrant- however when I looked at it a bit more I feel the skin and hair is over done. It makes him look like he is made out of wax.

2 & 3 are the same as #1

4 is very nice expression and distance but is very flat. There is a lot of light noise around his face and not near as sharp as the other photos.

5- just don't really like it. There is not much goin on- profile shot w/o emotion

6, 7, & 8 are the strongest of the set to me. I think these are very nicely done.

9- just so so

cmorganphotography · June 28, 2008

NeilL wrote:

Glad to grab you!

Neil

:cry :oogle :hurt :cry

NeilL · June 29, 2008

anwmn1 wrote:

Neil-

These are not technical critiques just my impression of the shots.....

1. at first it really grabbed me because it is very vibrant- however when I looked at it a bit more I feel the skin and hair is over done. It makes him look like he is made out of wax.

2 & 3 are the same as #1

4 is very nice expression and distance but is very flat. There is a lot of light noise around his face and not near as sharp as the other photos.

5- just don't really like it. There is not much goin on- profile shot w/o emotion

6, 7, & 8 are the strongest of the set to me. I think these are very nicely done.

9- just so so

Thanks. The issues you raise are important to me, namely, the limits beyond which post processing calls attention to itself and detracts, and finding a signature quality for my images.

The stage I'm at now, I am pretty much at the mercy of chance. I am still learning the basics of my gear and of the technicalities of photography. It's mostly a case of my having to do something with whatever comes to me from the situation and my gear, rather than directing and crafting the product I want. I know my gear can give me whatever I ask of it. Trouble is my skills and my photographic imagination, which depends on knowing what is possible, are still not up to the challenge of my gear and the subject.

The raw material I got from this little shoot was largely random and not of optimal quality. Of them all #8 comes closest to what I might have wanted had I been more in control. PP was the only option for the rest if I was going to have more than a couple from the shoot. The first three were among the first I shot. They all had seriously blownout areas along with seriously underexposed remainder. They got as little PP treatment as I could use to get to showable quality, which was still too heavy to be acceptable to you (and me and others, I'm sure). Are they worth keeping nevertheless? Without an alternative, I decided yes.

I think what you see in the face in #4 is not light noise, but reflection off skin texture. All skin is not the same texture between genetically different people. And when light is reflected off the texture of some very dark skin it shows as speckles. On white skin this is camouflaged by the basic white color of the skin. Similarly, the shine on black skin looks different to the shine on white skin. And if you look carefully into black skin, particularly the skin on the hands and feet, you can see below the surface saturation of melanin a creaminess. All these factors can indeed contribute to an impression of waxiness in the eyes of people used to looking at white skin, which is comparatively matte and underlaid with red and blue. In short, different skins photograph differently. The PP I have already talked about exaggerated the difference in some of these photos.

Concerning "not much going on" in the face in some of these photos, I agree that I perhaps lapsed in my responsibility to pose the face there. However, if you spend some time browsing, let's say, the faces of statues from antiquity, or even more recent examples, or again, the faces in graphic art (think of the cliche Mona Lisa face), you will see that perhaps the majority of these faces have not much going on in them. I love #5 for the way it shows the moulding of the head and features, that is for its plastic qualities. You feel when you look at this photo that you have walked all around the head and seen it from all directions.

To balance the lack of emotion you feel, I would suggest that in every face here there is very definitely something going on in the eyes! Yes?

Good that you have made me articulate these half-hidden thoughts! I really appreciate your interest.

Best.

Neil

NeilL · June 29, 2008

Awais Yaqub wrote:

I like them very nice !

Thanks, Awais! I am always delighted when you look in!

Neil

NeilL · June 29, 2008

cmorganphotography wrote:

:cry :oogle :hurt :cry

You were lost, elsewhere. Now here, are you also lost for words?

Neil

Roshan (portrait exercises with white shirt and dark skin)

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