Portrait Photography - My Frustration Level is Peaking!

[Jayson]

Sean has a great point! Since seeing his stuff, I have done the same and it has helped a bunch. Haven't quite made it out into the streets though. []

[Sean Setters]

Haven't quite made it out into the streets though.

If you do ply your trade in the middle of the streets, though, you'd better be packin' like the GTA thug seen above.

[ddt0725]

Wow, this is the first time the sites been working at the same time I'm able to go on it in quite awhile! So, first off I want to apologize for not responding to all ofthe comments above sooner! Second, I want to thank everyone for all of the suggestions you have given me! I am going to try each and every one of them eventually I should get this right!

It's late and my daughter and I just finished a few hours (yes, hours!) of shooting! I did start slow with just one light w/ a softbox high above her. Shadows were bad so I added another on a stand which helpedalot but for the life of me I could not get rid of the shadow on her neck from her chin no matter where I put the second light! Nor could I get anything even half as nice as the boys pictures above! My white background turned very gray.

She won't allow me to post any photos of her but if my other daughter comes over this weekend and we get a chance to do some shooting, I'll post a few of the results of those.

Thank you so much again ...I am very appreciative!

Denise

[ddt0725]

I set up my white backdrop (white satin or fleece material purchased from hobby lobby), then set up my two flashes with a 60 inch umbrella and a 53 inch (i think) I position them about a 45 degree angle from where I plan on sitting or standing to catch the boys. I then sent the flashes to 1/2 power and 1/4 power. Something around there. I have the flash stands set as high as they will go in the room, usually around 8ft as the ceilings are around 9 ft and the umbrella is scraping on the ceiling and then just angle them downward pointing at where I believe the general area the boys will be standing. I usually have my camera set at f6.3 and 1/100th (boys wiggle a ton so I don't want something too slow). Sit them down and fire away. Now, the background doesn't get blown out at all, so I have to do a little bit in PP to get the background a solid white, but itturns out okay for me.

Hi Jayson -

I did get to see your boys photos before the site went down but I couldn't not comment because I was at work. The photos were fantastic and I would give anything to end up with something even 1/2 that good!

I do have one umbrella (not very large) but I am thinking maybe I should get another ..OMG! There I go, thinking of buying more when I can't even get what I have to work for me! [:P]

Thanks so much though for your very detailed suggestions and I am going to try and set up things very similar.

Denise


BTW - My grandson has stick-on tattoos also and he loves them!

[ddt0725]

Sean has a great point! Since seeing his stuff, I have done the same and it has helped a bunch. Haven't quite made it out into the streets though.

I don't think I'm ready to take it to the street ...I don't think my neighbors are ready for it either! [:O] But it would sure give the retired busy body next door something new to talk about!

[ddt0725]

Jan had some terrific advice. Start with what you know. If you need to capture the moment then use on-camear E-TTL with bounce. At least you'll likely get what you need that way. I understand that you want to learn how to use off-camera flash. Like Jan said, start with one flash. See what it can and cannot do. Each light in a setup has a specific task (Key, Fill, Separation, Background, etc). I know the temptation is to use them all but sometimes one or two will do. Try using one umbrella/softbox and see what it does for you. Move it around and see how that affects the light and shadows.

Yep, I think what happened was I started doing more than I was ready for and ended up worse off than when I started months ago! Instead of moving forward slowly, I took a giant leap and ended up with a mess!

Tonight I started with the one softbox and then added a light and tomorrow night am going to work on that again to figure out how to eliminate shadows I don't want and maybe figuring out how to get some that I do want for certain affects.

Thanks so much for your help, Mark!

Denise

[ddt0725]

It sounds like for what you are shooting you want a nice soft flattering light.

Exactly! Eventually, I was hoping to learn how to get shadow where I want it like on one side of the face rather than where I DON'T want it like on the backdrop or a shadow of her chin on her neck!

We usually only get a chance to do this when it's late at night but this weekend I am hoping to do it during the day to use more of the natural light but tonight I did use your advice and put the stand with the softbox much closer to her than I was doing before and it did work out much better. Thanks, Keith

[ddt0725]

And remember--it may be slow and arduous, but you can always practice on yourself!

I'm so bad ...I want everyone to let me take their picture but then I never want my own taken!! If I was as good at this as you are Sean, I would proudly stand in my street and snap away ...while all my neighbors peer thru their blinds!

[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.


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