Portrait Photography - My Frustration Level is Peaking!

[MOF_Sydney]

Denise,


One thing you might try is to buy a big teddy bear. I use one to test a set up all the time. It sits very still and doesn't get impatient if I'm not happy and spend time fiddling around. When you can see the fur texture is exposed nicely and is quite sharp then you're close.

[Tom Wertman]

Denise,


Without seeing samples it's hard to give advice. So I will start at the basics of portrait lighting. My mentor suggested to me once that I study paintings of Rembrant for lighting technique. I saw right off that his paintings were different for male and female. For a male the lighting came from one side and a shadow was cast from the nose on the opposite side of the face. Just enough lighting would spill over to that side and create a small triangular shape of light on the cheek just below the eye. For females they were often lit up more from the front and the shape of light would be more like a butterfly spanning across both cheeks evenly. If you google Rembrant you will see what I mean. To think that he did this 400 years ago with candle light shows the pure genius that we follow today. I'm no expert but here are a couple of samples that illustrate this technique.


[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.22.75/_5F00_033-copy_5F00_DxO-copy.jpg[/img]


[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.22.75/_5F00_053-copy_5F00_DxO-copy.jpg[/img]

[deltasun]

Denise, found this video a while back that may give you some ideas...


Portrait Single Light


Hope your trek gets better!

[ddt0725]

Denise, found this video a while back that may give you some ideas...


Portrait Single Light

Thanks for the link ...it was cool to actually see the different effects from the lighting.

Hope your trek gets better!

Well, tonight we took a number of shots again and ...woohoo!! It wentMUCH better! Everything worked right off the bat and no unwanted shadows anywhere!!Things aren't as good as many I've seen posted here but at least I feel like I'm on the right track! I used my Lumodi Beauty Dish this time with a diffuser sock over itand I didn't have it up as high on the stand as I didthe softbox last night. Just slightly higher than her. That is probably what helped with eliminating the chin shadow on her neck. I also used another speedlight on a stand to her left.

I wish she would let me post pics! []

Thanks so much to everyone for all there suggestions! Using a combination of all of them has really helped me tremendously!

Denise