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. []
Originally Posted by Jayson
If you do ply your trade in the middle of the streets, though, you'd better be packin' like the GTA thug seen above.
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
Hi Jayson -Originally Posted by 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!
Originally Posted by Jayson
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!
Originally Posted by Mark Elberson
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
Originally Posted by Keith B
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
Originally Posted by Sean Setters
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!
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.
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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