Tag Archives: portrait

The Classic Reflector

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You can’t beat a simple reflector when it comes to controlling natural light. The one I used on this shot is a 5 in one type, large round reflector. The subject had her back towards the sun (it was low but not setting) and I had my assistant angle the gold side until it hit her face. Really that’s all there is too it. I exposed for the face but the reflector compresses the light in such a nice way that it makes that pretty easy too.

The only minor thing I did in Lightroom was to remove some of the gold light from her teeth. I thing to watch-out for! If you cant afford a reflector just use the a foil window shade (the type you get for a car). Of course they are normally silver so not as good as the gold in this case. My reflector also has a white side, which lets you filter direct light. I took a few shots with that as well but in the end the sea made a much nicer background.

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The Simple Portrait

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You can’t beat the classic 50mm lens when it comes to making an intimate portrait. This one was taken using the 50mm 1.4 EF lens from Canon. Its quite a jump in price from the “plastic fantastic” 50mm 1.8 but worth the jump if you can afford it. The 50mm 1.8 can be used to create some pretty sweet photos considering its price-point (around $100 USD). What you will find though is that the 1.4 has a much more pleasing bokeh; the increased number of blades in the lens is probably a factor there. Attached to a APS-C type camera (like the 7D used here) can mean that you lose a bit of that intimacy and certainly you will find it a bit cramped in a café type location. In that case the 35mm might be a better bet.

When all is said done you really do need to have some kind of 50mm lens in your kit. Start with the 1.8 (Nikon have a similarly priced one too) and then work your way up. My only negative with the 50mm 1.4 is that it’s not weather-sealed; you’ll have to go all the way up to the expensive Canon 50mm 1.2 model to get that.

For this photo I processed it using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 for the black and white conversion, then blending it out to bring back some colour. I’m not a huge fan of the selective colouring, which is to my mind often over used. I guess it’s just a matter of taste at the end of the day.

By the way I tried this exact portrait with the 50mm attached to a Canon 5D and preferred this one in the end!

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Alice in Wonderland Photo Shoot

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I did fun “Alice in Wonderland”€ themed photo shoot the other day. The idea was to add some drama and fun to a standard couple photo shoot. In this case we used costumes, dress-up and some quirky props to build the scene. The goal was to capture something a bit offbeat, surreal and manic. Setting the whole scene at the beach at sunset, helped too. You can imagine that a wild, stormy night would have been great as well.

Once the scene is set its important to get the “actors” into their roles. I had asked them earlier to begin thinking about mood, poses and actions. I reckon props really help when it comes to actually making the picture. Sometimes its hard to know what to do with your hands!

I used the natural light from the setting sun bounced off a large reflector or diffused through another one. In post-processing I took a few different approaches; dreamy, realistic, grungy and muted tones to convey some of the drama.

Let me know if you’d like a dramatic photo shoot like this!
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Here’s another one with the Mad Hatter sneaking a little kiss:

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Beach Boy

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Now to try and remember what I did on this one…  I think the composition and expression was pretty good but it did look a little flat.  The option to go black and white was there but that lovely gold tone was too good to lose!  So, I took it into Nik Color Efex Pro 4 – extract details filter and then tweaked the levels slightly in Photoshop.

I do like to use the Art History brush to create the “painting look” but it takes ages!  So, I took it into Alien Skin Software’s Snap Art 3 (watercolour filter), adjusted the canvas and reduced the brush size.  The result was nice enough but I lost a little too much detail for my liking.  Next I duplicated the layer and applied a High Pass filter to the image, finally using a mask; I painted only those bits of sharpening in that I wanted.   By the way blending mode was to “darken” not my usual “High Light” mode.Now to get this one printed….

Contact me through my blog if you’re interested in high-resolution versions of any of my photos.

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A Week on Camp

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A week at school camp was a real blast and now I’m wading through all of those photos.  The camp was for what we in New Zealand call “year 7 and 8” (about 12-13 age range).  It’s almost of the end of the school year here and this will be the last major event/camp these guys will do before heading off to college (high-school).   As you can imagine there were lots of late nights and early mornings.

I was there primarily to take photographs and just generally help.  Mostly I was taking photos of the kids with their activities but I did manage to get a few landscape shots in as well.I like the photo below as it captures some of the fun we had on a rare wet day in Nelson.  The kids were riding go-karts down the hill and through the mud.  By the way I used my special (expensive) rain-hood on my Canon 7D – a plastic bag!

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Smile!

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There’s just something about a smile… so much said with no words.  I like when the smile is captured on the photo without ever saying those words – “smile!” I seem to remember reading that smiling in photos is a fairly modern thing; perhaps it started after the Second World War.   Here’s a family photo of mine from around (guessing here) 1910 – most people in the image are smiling which is interesting.   By the way, the boy at the front row (left) with the big boots is my grandfather:

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I try to catch the person smiling by saying something (usually something silly); I reckon that works better.  The result is more natural in the end.  I shot a wedding a couple of weeks ago and never once said the “smile” word.  And yes they were smiling in the photos!

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When it all comes together

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Sometimes it just all comes together; the light, the expression and the colour.  This portrait is a great example of why it’s good to always carry your camera with you.  These close-up shots work really well with a 50mm fast lens; you can open the aperture wide-open, allowing you to use only natural light and get that nice bokeh around the face.  The main challenge I find in these cases is to make sure the depth of field is not too shallow; otherwise you can get the tip of the nose in focus and little else!

For me the main element in most portraits is the eyes.  Get the focus right and everything else will follow.  I use a single focus point on my Canon 7D, so I focus on the eye and then re-compose to position the centre wherever makes sense.

This lovely photo was basically perfect in camera and only a slight crop and RAW sharpening were required.

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