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Engagement Portraits: Katie and Brendan
I had the opportunity to shoot the engagement portraits for my sister-in-law and her new fiance. We all spent the Thanksgiving holiday together in the countryside near Bedford, PA, and had the opportunity to use the abundant local scenery during the shoot. It was quite cold on the day we did this shoot, despite the bright sunlight. Between shots, Katie and Brendan were putting on coats and gloves to stay warm--they really were troopers for these photographs, but they liked the results! Comments, criticism, tips for future shots, etc. are welcome, as always.
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
Amusing story about the #'s 7 and 8 here. For this set of shots, I climbed down an embankment next to the covered bridge and stood down near the rain-swollen creek. My wife, who was assisting me on this shoot, stood up closer to the bridge and held the light stand that I had nearly fully extended to get some light onto their faces. The shots went well, and then it was time to pack it all up and head home. I took the light stand from my wife and started to break it down while she climbed back up the embankment. I started up behind her, and was juuuuust handing her the light stand when my foot caught on a vine or root or something and took me down. I nearly turned into a permanent soprano, as my more sensitive bits landed near an exposed pointy dead brand sticking up from the ground. My jeans did not fare well from the incident, but my equipment and I were otherwise fine, with the only really noticeable issue was a little bit of mud on the 70-200mm lens hood. Hooray for tough jeans and a good carrying system (thank you Think Tank!).
jonathan
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
Amusing story about the #'s 7 and 8 here. For this set of shots, I climbed down an embankment next to the covered bridge and stood down near the rain-swollen creek. My wife, who was assisting me on this shoot, stood up closer to the bridge and held the light stand that I had nearly fully extended to get some light onto their faces. The shots went well, and then it was time to pack it all up and head home. I took the light stand from my wife and started to break it down while she climbed back up the embankment. I started up behind her, and was juuuuust handing her the light stand when my foot caught on a vine or root or something and took me down. I nearly turned into a permanent soprano, as my more sensitive bits landed near an exposed pointy dead brand sticking up from the ground. My jeans did not fare well from the incident, but my equipment and I were otherwise fine, with the only really noticeable issue was a little bit of mud on the 70-200mm lens hood. Hooray for tough jeans and a good carrying system (thank you Think Tank!).
jonathan
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Comments
14-24 24-70 70-200mm (vr2)
85 and 50 1.4
45 PC and sb910 x2
http://www.danielkimphotography.com
Thanks for the comments! I had balanced color across the set before I did any processing. I often debate whether I should leave the skin tone changes or mask them out after the fact. Sometimes I like them and leave them, and sometimes I don't like them and I mask them. I might go back through these and reconsider some of the masking. Thanks!
jonathan
I like 3 & 6 best of the series.
On #2, what is masking the hand on his shoulder? Looks partly greyed out...
Who is wise? He who learns from everyone.
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Thanks for the comments!
As for the hand on #2, I had to go back to look at that in the originals. It wasn't something that caught my eye until you noticed it, and then it really concerned me. It does look a little odd, but it appears to be entirely natural. That's apparently an area where the light fell-off quickly under that tree, and the fill flash (off-camera shot through an umbrella) was masked by something. We were in the middle of a bunch of branches when I was shooting this, so it could have been almost anything masking the light there. For comparison, here's the shot SOOC:
Looking at it closely, it is out of the focal plane with an edge that is accentuated by the pattern on his shirt. Hrm.
Now that I've seen it, I debated doing something about it (more drastic vignette, a bit of burning, etc.), and decided to leave it there. Good catch, though--I appreciate it.
jonathan