More "studio" type shots from today

[DVC Jen]

I used my youngest daughters best friend as a model. Have full permission to use her portraits in any way I want - post them, print them,...

Again - any suggestions or advice is appreciated.

close up -same photo

another edit on the same photo

 

[wdwmom2]

Great shots!!! The ones from yesterday were very good, but I like these even better. Keep up the good work .

 

[Suburbanmom]

Nice job, Jen. The poses are very fitting for her age. If I was her mother, I would insist on a copy for myself.

 

[sk8belle]

I think the lighting on these are better than the last set you posted. The second one and the second to last one are outstanding. Her eyes really pop out at you. Did you selectively color them?

Great job!

 

[YEKCIM]

Lovely photos of a beautiful subject! Looks like you're on the right track to me. Only suggestion, and I'm certainly no authority, would be to give a little more separation between subject and background, when possible, and perhaps use a longer focal length, in order to blur the b/g a little. That's mostly from the perspective of my personal shooting style. I love using longer focal lengths for shallow DOF, to separate the subject from the b/g.

Keep 'em coming!

~YEKCIM

 

[ukcatfan]

They are very good. On the first close up and the last shot, I would PS in a more distinct pupil. It may be due to the angle of the flash b/c it looks like the pupil area is filled with reflections of the flash. It looks for like a pinpoint of light in the other ones, which looks more natural IMO.

Kevin

 

[Miss Kelly]

Your doing so great Jen! I love them all but I have a just a few critiques. #4 something is just off with the color on this one. I don't know what though. #3 she seems a little red to me.

 

[Gdad]

I like the first one a lot. What kind of lighting are you using?

 

[DVC Jen]

Thanks. I am really proud of this set. I can see improvement - and with me being as horribly hard on myself as I am - that is saying something. lol

The lighting - well. LOL I have kind of set up a "studio" in the garage. We did these mid day yesterday (man it was hot - feel sorry for the poor kid but she was such a trooper). OK - back on track - the lighting - I opened the garage door. I also had one light with an umbrella set up on one side of her so both sides of her face were not evenly lit.
Gotta love natural light.

As far as moving her away from the background - I tried. I took advice to heart - and moved her out as far as I could. I just have such limited space in the garage and a backdrop that isn't all that long. I also worry about having to walk out into the driveway and the lighting being much stronger there. Will that mess up the exposure??? If it won't or shouldn't - I'll do it. Anything to get better.

Kelly - I agree with you on the redness. She put some kind of red hair spray in her hair and that didn't help - but I can also see an underlying red tone to her skin. I took several shots of each pose and played with them - when I was converting from raw. Some I took all of the red out and she looked so pale. Some I kept some red in and her eyes really popped. She has the most amazing eyes I have ever seen. I fell in love with them yesterday.

Any suggestions on how to get the red out without making the person look pale?

On the black and whites I did do a bit of selective coloring. Her Mom loves B&W shots - but it was killing me to lose her eye color - so I added some blue and a touch of green to her eyes.

On the 4th photo - I was playing with photoshop I'm such a kid with a toy. I used the center color filter so that only her face was in color and it faded out to black and white (not sure if that is what you meant). One of the ones of her lying down I did mess up the white balance. I was playing with it a bit to see what was going to work best. I had it set on Tungsten and she was VERY blue around the edges. She loved it though. That may be one of the white balance goofs that I just converted to black and white as she was standing there gushing about how she loved being blue. Kids!

I have two families that I will be doing in the next few weeks. One is next week - a lady whom I used to work with at the preschool - and then the following week a former teachers aide of mine who moved to Chicago last year. They are coming back to visit and I am doing family portraits and individual.

... Just gonna keep pluggin away - trying to get better and better.

 

[jann1033]

WOW! someday I'll be i saying "i knew her when she was just starting out" ! love the 2 where she is lying down

wondering could the red be a reflection bouncing from something like a red car? just wondering since on the color of her lying down her shoulders don't look red just her face..take that with a grain of salt since i know squat about lighting

 

[DVC Jen]

WOW! someday I'll be i saying "i knew her when she was just starting out" ! love the 2 where she is lying down

You are soooooo good for my self confidence. You're goofy But great for my self confidence.

 

[jann1033]

 

[DVC Jen]

 

[SharonLowe]

Nice job for a such a limited set-up. Agree with comments re: too many highlights in the eyes on the 2nd one; and off color on some of the others. I would say the light was a bit hot on 4 - you've blown out some highlights. As for reducing the red, I find a selective color adjustment layer to be very helpful for situations such as this. You can tone it down; mask out areas you don't want changed; and even deepen or lighten it. You could also try hue/sat, go into the reds (under the edit box), then use the eyedropper to select the colors you want to tone down and reduce the saturation a bit. It is very helpful to shoot one scene with a grey card so that you can then use it to set your white balance to neutral in PS.

Two books you might want to consider are:

Posing and Lighting Techniques for Studio Portrait Photography and Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers, both published by Amherst Media. They aren't the newest but they do a good job of explaining lighting techniques and why you would use one over the other. They also cover using reflectors in addition to lights so you don't have to necessarily get more lights. One area in your photos that could use some help is the hair - could really use a hair light to really add punch to the photos.

 

[DVC Jen]

Wow thanks Sharon for your thoughts and opinions. You sound like you have a lot of experience doing portrait photography. Do you? Me - I have only had a dSLR in my hands for 7 months - so I am feeling pretty good about how far I have gotten in such a short time.

I look forward to you sharing your knowledge with me many more times.

 

[SharonLowe]

Wow thanks Sharon for your thoughts and opinions. You sound like you have a lot of experience doing portrait photography. Do you? Me - I have only had a dSLR in my hands for 7 months - so I am feeling pretty good about how far I have gotten in such a short time.

I look forward to you sharing your knowledge with me many more times.

I've done a few and, yes, you are doing great. She will be very happy with her photos.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Very nice, Jen. I can only wish I could do that. Really nice.

 

[DVC Jen]

Thanks Dan. There is no doubt you could do what I did. I think anyone who wants to do it can.

I know I have sooooo much to learn yet - and I don't always have the confidence in me other people seem to. Why they have that confidence - beats me.

Each time I pick up the camera I learn something new though. I've also had some pretty easy and willing "models".

Next week I am returning a favor by taking pics of a ladies kids. She made Kylie's (my oldest DD) graduation cake - and wouldn't let me pay her anything for it. So I am taking pics of her kids.

I think that will be a real test for me. I know the kids - but I don't know them well.

Hopefully they will come out at least half as good as that cake tasted.