First "Model" shoot

[RBennett]

Ok, so for Father's day my brother asked me to shoot a picture of his daughter and our grandmother (her great-grandmother) and they had a particular pose and facial expression in mind. Below is the end result.

f/5.6 ISO 800 1/2"

Hindsight being what it is, I know I should have used different settings. I had my 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 on auto mode and that was a big mistake. I had to use this lens because we were in close quarters and location was kind of out of our control. I shot about 30 pictures or so, but the lighting was rough. I tried using my flash, but even with my Gary Fong system, it was still too much so I ended up not using any flash in a dark room. I had this set up on a tripod and was using a remote shutter release. Can anyone give some constructive criticism? Going back, I probably should have shot aperture priority and opened it up as wide as I could.

 

[YEKCIM]

I *really* like the concept of the "overlaid" profiles. VERY nice. The image looks a little soft to me, but could be that you intended it to be so. As far as lighting is concerned, have you considered some sort of "garage" lighting? You could string a piece of fabric up a few feet back from the opening of your garage door, as a backdrop. The open garage door then acts as a huge softbox and the lighting is usually very nice and soft, but strong enough to allow you some flexibility as far as shutter speed, aperture, and ISO.

~Ed

 

[Frantasmic]

I would suggest some gentle lighting on their faces. It seems your distance between them, the ISO and the longer exposure to get the light up caused some fuzziness or softer focus than you may have liked. Still you did come out with a good picture and a good pose.

Perhaps if you could have gotten the grandmother closer to the girl, but placed her out in front more to get more focus on her, that would have worked.

 

[Lizziejane]

I really like the pose too. Opening up wide may not help though, as it might throw the grandmother out of focus too much.

If your flash head swivels, in situations where you find the flash just too overpowering, turn the head so that it bounces off a wall behind you. I know lots of people will suggest bouncing off the ceiling or a side wall, but I often find directly behind me gives the best results. Of course, you'll get lots of strange looks when people let you know your flash is pointed the wrong way, and you reply, "yes, I know!"