I've been wondering something lately,...

[faeriegodess612]

Why is it that in all these Senior portraits that I see, that are deemed really good by everyone, the sky will be blown out?

Obviously, this is if the photos are taken outside,..is it because when metering, to get the correct exposure on the face, it ultimately ends up blowing out the sky behind the subject?

Or is it something else, like most portrait photographers don't use a CPL or anything else to make the skies blue. I've seen some good Senior photos that have a lot of sky in the background and either by post processing or by the skill of the photographer, the sky will be a brilliant blue.

I'm confused a lil on this,...because I want to get into doing portraits, I've told my one girlfriend here that one day soon, shes going to become my subject for the day,...and I gave my number to an ex-co-worker, to be able to use him and his family as practice subjects. ( Ya'll know me,... I'm not going to try and go out there and make a business if I don't think I'm good enough to. ) I just want some experience in this field.

So, is this a current trend, like selective coloring, or what?

[CheaperKings]

It's just bad photography...

[CheaperKings]

And, FYI, I do NOT love the moderation team - they love ME!

[IABoomer]

Yes, if the photographer meters for the face, the sky ends up blown. They could meter for the sky, then use a flash/reflector to get light back into the subject.

What people probably like is that the subject is clearly defined since they're not competing with any detail in the sky/background. Nothing says you can't or shouldn't try to get both if possible if that suits your style/vision for the image.

[justin_ing]

^^ +1

Be better than the rest, and learn from their mistakes... which it looks like you already are

[Ambrosia76]

Thank You! I thought I was the only one going "what is so great about that?". I also don't get people that post shots in a criitque forum(not here on flickr for my local photo club) and they are horrible and people still say"great shot,good capture etc" the whole point of getting critiques is to improve your work.

[faeriegodess612]

Ok,..so it's not just me thats noticed this?

I don't understand the whole,..... Place the sun behind my subject and get a major camera flare from behind their head,...shots either. And it almost seems to be a trend lately, to overexpose the person, and "highlight" their eyes. Those shots hurt my eyes,....

[Niresangwa]

...because they're natural light photographers and don't believe in using lighting.

[SwissJon]

Interestingly, if you look at the Mona Lisa, there's no detail in the sky, and it almost looks like Da Vinci has deliberately blown out the sky.

Is is it really that important not to blow out the sky? This is a portrait not a Landscape photo.

When you take a photo in a studio, you have the option of what back drop to use, so you choose something reasonably plain so as not to compete with the subject, Outdoors, you have all sorts of distracting things behind the subject to compete with them, so you use a shallow DoF, and this brings the attention back to the subject. So what's the problem with blowing the highlights, there's no detail there anyway? All you do then is create a high key photo. Life's depressing enough when you're 70, your movement's restricted, you can't do the things you used to be able to do, so you really won't sell portraits to seniors if all you do is create moody low key photos.

I'm not a portrait photographer, but I can see the thought process behind this.. It's not bad photography, it's just what the client wants.

[Woody]

Yeah, the Seniors bit has me a bit worried as well.

My camera is not ageist, it stuffs up anyone.


Cheers,
John W