First time portrait photography

I'm doing senior portraits for my brother graduating this year. I actually bought an EF 50mm f/1.8 for this purpose, but I found myself keeping the 70-200 f/2.8 on almost the whole time. It worked great out in this state park.


I used the built in flash @ -2 EV for both.


Canon 50 w/ EF 70-200mm f/2.8L @ 200mm 1/320 sec f/2.8 ISO 160 +0.67 ev
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<div>Canon 50D w/ EF 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm 1/250 sec f/2.8 ISO 160 +0.67 ev</div>
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<div>Critique/Comments welcome. This is my first time trying portrait photography.</div>

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"]Hi Alex,
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"]Nice shots, I like the first better then the second, less busy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] With your second shot be aware of background, lighter colours and distractions will bring your eye to these areas first, that is why your first photo is so much better, maybe get your subject to sit / squat in front of the rock wall, don&rsquo;t have trees growing out of heads.
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"]Your first shot is very good the only suggestion I would make is the post production vignetting, I&rsquo;d get rid of it, great background, not distracting lighting is good, nice hair highlight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] Built in flash, don&rsquo;t like them but it has worked for you here, well done indeed.
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"]Colour, sorry Australian spelling, color, I don&rsquo;t know, it just doesn&rsquo;t seem right, ie jeans look purplish / blue on my monitor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] Mate all in all really good job with a few tweaks, nice positioning of subject too, looks comfortable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] Keep up the good work.
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"]<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"]Scott

Alex-


If you can get someone to help you, I'd suggest using some foam core or some other white reflective surface to throw a little bit of soft sunlight onto the subject's face. Other than that, I, too, like the first one. The second one seems a little too cool for my taste (plus the background isn't as nice).

I'm hoping to redo the second one in about a month when everything starts to turn green. These shots were basicly test shots just to see if we could find any good spots for when the scenery started getting nicer this spring.

I agree with what has been posted so I won't repeat it.


The only thing I would add that i noticed was the highlighted twig in the first photo, to the right of your brother's head. It isn't overly distracting, but it did catch my eye. Just keep an eye on that type of stuff when you are composing and then preview your shots as you take them. Depending on whatever may be to his right, you could position your brother 6 inches to the right and cover the stick.

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Originally Posted by TucsonTRD

I agree with what has been posted so I won't repeat it.


The only thing I would add that i noticed was the highlighted twig in the first photo, to the right of your brother's head. It isn't overly distracting, but it did catch my eye. Just keep an eye on that type of stuff when you are composing and then preview your shots as you take them. Depending on whatever may be to his right, you could position your brother 6 inches to the right and cover the stick.
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...that twigwould also be quite easy to remove in Photoshop or Gimp.

Be sure to put that 50mm f/1.8 to work too!,.. Find some light coming trough some trees, open her wide (f/1.8), lowest ISO, then find your shutter speed (1/400ths?), push in pretty close and SNAP. The plastic fantastic 50 never lets me down and lens changes add to your versatility in every shoot.


-Shea