Portrait Testing

[o0chad0o]

I finally broke down and bought some strobes, and unfortunately for my daughter...she was my guinea pig.

Anyrate, shot this last night on my father-in-laws deck. I used two strobes in softboxes, a 48" silver/gold reflector, and black muslin cloth for a backdrop. Space was fairly limited, eight to ten feet to setup the lights and subject.

Specific inquiries are composition or pose, and lighting. The background was kinda adhoc...I would definitely liked to have used a different type of backdrop, but have yet to buy a setup. Should I have come up with another light for fill, especially in the lower body? How about the cropping below the knees? I read somewhere not to crop below the elbows and knees when doing portraits...but does breaking the rule in this particular instance kill the overall picture?

Anyrate, thanks for the input, it's greatly appreciated.


EXIF: Aperture: f/6.3, Exposure: 1/125sec., ISO: 100, Focal Length: 65mm

[Doug Sundseth]

I think your crop works fine here.

The lighting works pretty well. By allowing the light to fall off towards the bottom of the frame, you direct the viewer's eye to the subject's face. Since that's where you want it to go, hurray!

The background works reasonably well. Not thrilling, but it doesn't distract me from the subject.

The pose looks pretty self-conscious. (FWIW, I find this one of the hardest things to manage in a portrait shoot.)

[ChrisAdval]

Originally Posted by o0chad0o

I finally broke down and bought some strobes, and unfortunately for my daughter...she was my guinea pig.

Anyrate, shot this last night on my father-in-laws deck. I used two strobes in softboxes, a 48" silver/gold reflector, and black muslin cloth for a backdrop. Space was fairly limited, eight to ten feet to setup the lights and subject.

Specific inquiries are composition or pose, and lighting. The background was kinda adhoc...I would definitely liked to have used a different type of backdrop, but have yet to buy a setup. Should I have come up with another light for fill, especially in the lower body? How about the cropping below the knees? I read somewhere not to crop below the elbows and knees when doing portraits...but does breaking the rule in this particular instance kill the overall picture?

Anyrate, thanks for the input, it's greatly appreciated.


EXIF: Aperture: f/6.3, Exposure: 1/125sec., ISO: 100, Focal Length: 65mm

The lighting is okay but I would experiment with one and master just one source, then two, then 3, and so on... in my opinion... Heck I'm still playing around with just using one source on my low-key photos which you can view the set of all of my low key photos here - Studio/Outdoors - Low Key Lighting - a set on Flickr

In my opinion I think having more shadows on the subject would increase interest on the entire photo using a black backdrop. Try it and come back with some results I'm sure you should love them. To me filling in all or most of the shadows feels like traditional photography and that type of photography is meant for the older styles and I'm not saying they're bad but they lack interest in my opinion.

[o0chad0o]

Originally Posted by Doug Sundseth

The background works reasonably well. Not thrilling...

...The pose looks pretty self-conscious. (FWIW, I find this one of the hardest things to manage in a portrait shoot.)...

The background was to be used other than how I ended up using it...it worked for the most part. Backdrops are on my list of things to accumulate...

She is/was definitely self-conscious the whole time. She's at that awkward age where everything is wrong...and the world is coming to an end because of it. It was a challenge getting her to relax.

Originally Posted by ChrisAdval

The lighting is okay but I would experiment with one and master just one source, then two, then 3, and so on... in my opinion...

That makes sense. I think it would be beneficial to break it down to one light at a time. Master one...then move on to multiple lights. Might flatten out that learning curve a bit...

I'll poke around your flickr page, and see if I can come up with something. Thanks!

Thank you both for the input...it is greatly appreciated.

[graciousness]

The lighting, it seems, was a little high from where she is sitting. She has shadows around her eyes and nose areas. Her head needed to be tilted up, looking somewhere towards the left side up (so as not to blind her) a little so that the light falls on her face. Of course, this requires a completely different position. You don't want to position your subject against the light as that would defeat the purpose of light positioning. You want her face, especially the eye area to be the best lit in a portrait.

I think if you really wanted this position, an addition of flash light bounced either from behind you (so long as there is a white wall) or from the right side. Not a lot, but a little light. You've lost details on her other shoulder and it is barely perceptible. In saying this, I'm not a big fan of this pose on the chair. She is a little bit closed up with arms around her,flattening the upper arm areas and making them look wider. A sitting down position would be better for women (especially) if her arms are opened up, probably resting on the armchair so that the upper part do not look bigger than they should.

Watch out for the lightest areas in the photos. Remember that a viewer's eyes will be lead towards the lightest part of an image. In this photo, the chair pad on the bottom is the lightest.

You have to watch out for shadow areas, especially around the face if you are posing your model. The background probably needed to be a bit further so that you have more separation from your subject and it doesn't absorb the lights.

When posing women or older, self-conscious girls, you want to make them appear longer and taller. Arms on the hips is good as it slims the torso area and arms, neck line extended, one foot slightly forward from the other and whole body shifted to one side a bit. I haven't read up on poses yet but I would highly suggest doing this if you are wanting to do some studio portraits.

Hope this helps. This is my observation anyway and applying what I have been learning lately. I also can't wait to play around when my extra strobe kits arrive!

Cheers,

Grace

[zona5101]

very nice analysis Graciousness.
My comment was also around the height of the lights and you covered it well.

[graciousness]

Originally Posted by zona5101

very nice analysis Graciousness.
My comment was also around the height of the lights and you covered it well.

Oh Bruce, thank you!! You know, I haven't used strobe stands, umbrellas, etc in a studio style shoot before but I've been reading up on flash basics lately and I have been analysing photos so that I can test the waters of what I think I got in my head.

So thank you for letting me know that my advice was correct as I'd hate to critique someone on technical matters if I'm wrong.

Cheers!

Grace

[o0chad0o]

Originally Posted by graciousness

The lighting, it seems, was a little high from where she is sitting.

The lights were placed at a forty-five degree angle. To achieve the forty-five degree angle, the lights were raised to about six feet (+/-). I see what you mean about the shadows under her nose and eyes. I tried to minimize them by using a reflector. Moving the lights would have been a better option. We had limited space to work with...next time I'll do a better job of finding a workspace better suited to what we needed.

She is a little bit closed up with arms around her,flattening the upper arm areas and making them look wider. A sitting down position would be better for women (especially) if her arms are opened up, probably resting on the armchair so that the upper part do not look bigger than they should.

Duly noted on the arms. Next time I'll come up with something else that opens them up a bit.

Watch out for the lightest areas in the photos. Remember that a viewer's eyes will be lead towards the lightest part of an image. In this photo, the chair pad on the bottom is the lightest.

Noted. This was just a "test"...getting my toes wet with off-camera lighting...I used what I had available. Do you suppose it would have made a difference wearing maybe a lighter colored shirt?

When posing women or older, self-conscious girls, you want to make them appear longer and taller. Arms on the hips is good as it slims the torso area and arms, neck line extended, one foot slightly forward from the other and whole body shifted to one side a bit.

My daughter is a 5'5", 120#, uncoordinated 11-year old. It was a challenge finding a pose she was comfortable with. I will find some reference material on posing...it might make for an interesting hands-on project.

Thanks for the input...it's greatly appreciated.