First time Studio Portrait

[keyairuh14]

This was the first time that I have done a studio portrait as well as portraits of an infant. I feel it turned out pretty awesome, but I need to know what all I should do to improve. I have a family shoot coming up soon and they have an infant as well. I'm nervous about what I need to keep in mind when doing the shoot. Thanks for any feedback.

Nikon
F/4
1/60
ISO/800
Auto flash

[BigFuzzy]

Crap.. I had a long detailed post that I screwed up by clicking on the photo haha.

Here's another shot at it.

First thing I noticed is that your image is very flat/grey. This can somewhat be improved by some post-processing work, but mainly the culprit is the fact that you used straight-on flash, probably a pop-up flash?

Using your flash straight on always flattens your subject by killing the shadows which subsequently kills the depth. If you want to pursue this type of photography (or any portraiture for that matter) I highly recommend you learn to use flash off camera. This can be done easily and cheaply if you know where to look. A good place to look is strobist.com.

Also, another negative side-effect of using straight on flash is that your subject blends into the background which further flattens the image. I would highly recommend trying to get more light to the side/back of the subject either by using another flash or reflectors. This will allow for your subject to 'pop' out of the background. When I get home I'll show you an example of a very similar shot I did using one 430ex flash shot through a 20usd umbrellay using a 40usd radio trigger. Gadgetinfinity.com is a good place to look into buying cheap radio triggers to get you started on off-camera flash use which is, in my humble opinion, crucial if you want to take portrait work seriously.

I hope this helps and sorry if this seems off as I quickly tried to re-type all my thoughts!

Good luck.

[dannyrich]

I must agree with Fuzzy.

Off camera flash will improve portraits by far and make them 3d and real.

I think its slightly under-exposed, even though the theme is low key I would say its still a little dark.

If you have photoshop try playing with the B&W conversion and utilise the green filter conversion, often lightens up the skin somewhat.

I like the picture though, if I received that I would be pretty pleased.

[BigFuzzy]

As promised in my last post I think these two images show the difference in what I was talking about. Look at the shadows and how they create depth in the subject. Granted, the 'lost in the background' thing is also an issue in my image because the clients wanted this exact thing even though I'm not big on the whole "lost in the background" thing.

Bigger version

And:

Big version