hitkaiser
06-23-2007, 01:38 AM
Coming close to an end of my sharing a house with other students, I called up those around for a group photo (Something we don't have many of).
Preparation:
I warned the girls we were going to take a group photo in the next 5mins or so.. this sent them the following signal: Get ready (they discreetly made their hair etc..) It's important to have your subjects being confident in the way they appear so giving them this opportunity is to your advantage.. it also gives you time to do other preparation.
Location. I had the choice of a cluttered living room or the backyard which featured green grass and a grey wall (overcast weather). I opted for the living room since i could get them to sit on the sofa where they would be comfortable, it also reduced the chance of irregular lighting.
I set up a tripod about 3 metres away from the sofa and used my 18-55mm lens to frame the sofa (which by the way is empty so far) making sure I left enough space on either side, top and bottom to allow for dangling arms, legs etc.. I fixed the height of the camera so as to be at the same level of the subjects eyes. By having the camera further away (and zooming in) I made sure everyone was pretty much looking in the right way, too close and I may have had some eyes looking down or up.
I also checked for any unwanted items which would distract from the group photo.. sometimes these get overlooked (ended up removing a beer can, a stool and a jumper) But didn't remove every single item since random objects conveyed a sense of the environment.
For the settings I used aperture priority and chose f11. Why? Well f11 is sort of a magic figure, it always makes everything in focus. In this case I could get everyone's faces in focus and random objects wouldn't be out of focus either (which could be distracting).
I half pressed the shutter to check the shutter speed... too slow so I bumped up the ISO till I got an acceptable shutter speed (faster than 1/4). It's important to have a suitable minimum shutter speed in portraits since people are likely to move around, breathe, sigh laugh etc... Asking them to be still is unnatural and is prone to stiff boring poses.
Next step was to set the 10sec timer, by now the 5mins were over and i asked everyone to get comfortable in the sofa. I didn't direct them as to how to position themselves.. people have a way of fitting around each other in whatever way they are comfortable, so I let them do it and simply reminded them to leave some space for me to come in.
Once in position, I used the autofocus making sure key points were all across their faces and hit the shutterspeed. Went across snuggled in and success! Right? Well, people are always curious as to how their photo came out... some will complain they weren't smiling right etc.. so please them, take 2 or 3 more shots.. each time they will try to smile harder (faker) and get more tired.. I find the first attempt is nearly always the "keeper". (Don't tell them that though..! Assure them that you will make sure to pick the one where everyone is looking their best!)
Post process: I did my usual RAW adjustments in photoshop... and noticed there was lots of clutter in the image. Solution: Make it b&w and bring out the faces (most important part of a portrait) by playing around with the yellow, orange and red channels, these made the faces considerably brighter than the rest of the darker image and make them stand out.
Result:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hitkaiser/592295107/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1079/592295107_fddd1f0c22.jpg" width="500" height="325" alt="F.R.I.E.N.D.S" /></a>
After the shots were taken and everyone sighed in relief I told them to get ready for a "fun" photo, they had to come up with "something to do" but not tell anyone.. I only gave them 10seconds or so to think of this, reason being; they will be nervous (and smile more in anticipation) and whatever they do will be more spontaneous! Hit the timer and ran off to the sofa, as the timer was approaching its end time people started laughing since they didn't really know what they were going to do... one person started messing one of the girl's hair... and everyone quickly joined in! Result:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hitkaiser/592612930/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1049/592612930_cd333d2c58.jpg" width="500" height="330" alt="Making of F.R.I.E.N.D.S" /></a>
Details are far from perfect (motion blur, composition etc..)but it makes them smile when they see the photo which is the whole point of the exercise anyway, its a memory trigger to remember the year we shared a house. In post processing I cropped tightly and slightly exaggerated contrast, saturation and added some vignetting to the viewer's eyes goes straight in the "action" to avoid it being simply a blurry picture with some random figures.
Whilst they were leaving, 2 housemates remained chatting to each other, I didn't leave my camera, instead I simply watched... One of them noticed and began doing funny poses (not thinking that I would take a photo.. little did she know!), these types of photos are amongst the best memories since they really bring out the character of the subjects!:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hitkaiser/592389409/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1316/592389409_cb887abb95.jpg" width="500" height="330" alt="Olu looks at Lara who looks at Me" /></a>
Preparation:
I warned the girls we were going to take a group photo in the next 5mins or so.. this sent them the following signal: Get ready (they discreetly made their hair etc..) It's important to have your subjects being confident in the way they appear so giving them this opportunity is to your advantage.. it also gives you time to do other preparation.
Location. I had the choice of a cluttered living room or the backyard which featured green grass and a grey wall (overcast weather). I opted for the living room since i could get them to sit on the sofa where they would be comfortable, it also reduced the chance of irregular lighting.
I set up a tripod about 3 metres away from the sofa and used my 18-55mm lens to frame the sofa (which by the way is empty so far) making sure I left enough space on either side, top and bottom to allow for dangling arms, legs etc.. I fixed the height of the camera so as to be at the same level of the subjects eyes. By having the camera further away (and zooming in) I made sure everyone was pretty much looking in the right way, too close and I may have had some eyes looking down or up.
I also checked for any unwanted items which would distract from the group photo.. sometimes these get overlooked (ended up removing a beer can, a stool and a jumper) But didn't remove every single item since random objects conveyed a sense of the environment.
For the settings I used aperture priority and chose f11. Why? Well f11 is sort of a magic figure, it always makes everything in focus. In this case I could get everyone's faces in focus and random objects wouldn't be out of focus either (which could be distracting).
I half pressed the shutter to check the shutter speed... too slow so I bumped up the ISO till I got an acceptable shutter speed (faster than 1/4). It's important to have a suitable minimum shutter speed in portraits since people are likely to move around, breathe, sigh laugh etc... Asking them to be still is unnatural and is prone to stiff boring poses.
Next step was to set the 10sec timer, by now the 5mins were over and i asked everyone to get comfortable in the sofa. I didn't direct them as to how to position themselves.. people have a way of fitting around each other in whatever way they are comfortable, so I let them do it and simply reminded them to leave some space for me to come in.
Once in position, I used the autofocus making sure key points were all across their faces and hit the shutterspeed. Went across snuggled in and success! Right? Well, people are always curious as to how their photo came out... some will complain they weren't smiling right etc.. so please them, take 2 or 3 more shots.. each time they will try to smile harder (faker) and get more tired.. I find the first attempt is nearly always the "keeper". (Don't tell them that though..! Assure them that you will make sure to pick the one where everyone is looking their best!)
Post process: I did my usual RAW adjustments in photoshop... and noticed there was lots of clutter in the image. Solution: Make it b&w and bring out the faces (most important part of a portrait) by playing around with the yellow, orange and red channels, these made the faces considerably brighter than the rest of the darker image and make them stand out.
Result:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hitkaiser/592295107/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1079/592295107_fddd1f0c22.jpg" width="500" height="325" alt="F.R.I.E.N.D.S" /></a>
After the shots were taken and everyone sighed in relief I told them to get ready for a "fun" photo, they had to come up with "something to do" but not tell anyone.. I only gave them 10seconds or so to think of this, reason being; they will be nervous (and smile more in anticipation) and whatever they do will be more spontaneous! Hit the timer and ran off to the sofa, as the timer was approaching its end time people started laughing since they didn't really know what they were going to do... one person started messing one of the girl's hair... and everyone quickly joined in! Result:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hitkaiser/592612930/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1049/592612930_cd333d2c58.jpg" width="500" height="330" alt="Making of F.R.I.E.N.D.S" /></a>
Details are far from perfect (motion blur, composition etc..)but it makes them smile when they see the photo which is the whole point of the exercise anyway, its a memory trigger to remember the year we shared a house. In post processing I cropped tightly and slightly exaggerated contrast, saturation and added some vignetting to the viewer's eyes goes straight in the "action" to avoid it being simply a blurry picture with some random figures.
Whilst they were leaving, 2 housemates remained chatting to each other, I didn't leave my camera, instead I simply watched... One of them noticed and began doing funny poses (not thinking that I would take a photo.. little did she know!), these types of photos are amongst the best memories since they really bring out the character of the subjects!:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hitkaiser/592389409/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1316/592389409_cb887abb95.jpg" width="500" height="330" alt="Olu looks at Lara who looks at Me" /></a>