"School photos"

[carlyfan]

Hi,
I am going to attempt taking "school photos" of my little sister. We are home schooled, so neither of us have ever had any, and I wanted to try. I was thinking of using natural light from a window and using some sort of foam board as a reflector. (I don't have any lighting equipment besides the pop-up flash.) Do you think this would work? Also I was wondering what I could use for a background. Any suggestions? I want this to look like a standard school photo. Any other tips or anything I should keep in mind would be much appreciated. Thanks so much!

Lisa

[SuperDan]

well.. good for you to want to try new things...

honestly, i saw you had lots of views but no posts... so.. heres my idea for you...

for the background... go get a soft blue or green top sheet (bed sheets) to use for your background... usually school pics are that way, although they are speckled and whatnot... if you have time and want to experiement, then take that sheet and some white/black paint and work it... no real way to tell you to do it.. just experiment...

for your lighting... you CAN use your pop up flash, although I dont recommend it without some modifier... i am glad to see you said about the natural light, and then yes a white foam board (dollar stores carry them around here in 2x4 size for $1)
if you can afford it buy the lightscoop (amazon) and that will help you bounce your flash, or even go the cheaper alternative and use a small index card to bounce your flash....

setup should be... window on left of camera, white board on right of camera, your camera on tripod vertically set and bounce the flash off of the white board... you will probably have to play with your settings as TTL will produce wayyy too much light output

hope that helps... good luck

[carlyfan]

Thanks for the reply Dan!
This is helpful, especially as far as the setup goes. And I think I will follow your suggestion on mixing natural and artificial light. I just hope it doesn't take a pro to pull that off! Thanks again.

Lisa

[kristenh]

Lisa, it's certainly true that a lot of school photos have that kind of fuzzy looking blue background, but imo it sure is ugly! i've seen some school photos that are taken up against a backdrop of pretend bookshelves. you might do that with real bookshelves if you have some situated in the right spot. if you use window light, don't use a window where the sun is really streaming in- use one that is bright but with indirect light. be sure to post them when you're done!

[NicolaB]

Why do you want it to look like a standard school photo? What so you want to do with it? You don't need to reply :-)

It is just that I was thinking that home schooling is not standard, so why be like everyone else? Take a picture of Sis to freeze her in your time - not everyone elses?

Just a thought.

[carlyfan]

Originally Posted by kristenh

Lisa, it's certainly true that a lot of school photos have that kind of fuzzy looking blue background, but imo it sure is ugly! i've seen some school photos that are taken up against a backdrop of pretend bookshelves. you might do that with real bookshelves if you have some situated in the right spot. if you use window light, don't use a window where the sun is really streaming in- use one that is bright but with indirect light. be sure to post them when you're done!

Thanks Kristen. The bookshelf idea sounds really cool. Unfortunately, I think our unruly conglomeration of random books would only be distracting. We don't have the nice looking kind of books with the plain binding that I think would work well for that. Thank you though. I will post them if you want. I'm hoping to do them this Sunday.

Originally Posted by NicolaB

Why do you want it to look like a standard school photo? What so you want to do with it? You don't need to reply :-)

It is just that I was thinking that home schooling is not standard, so why be like everyone else? Take a picture of Sis to freeze her in your time - not everyone elses?

Just a thought.

I guess it might sound silly, but I've just never had the experience of getting the photos, cutting the wallet sized ones out carefully along the white line, writing my name on the back, and exchanging them with friends. I want Mary to have that at least once in her life. Maybe it's because home schooling is so different that I want at least something to be similar.
Of course I take many other pictures of her, which I will doubtless like more than this one. I just wanted to do something different (for us) and give her the experience of it all.

[NicolaB]

I guess it might sound silly

It doesn't sound silly at all! :-)

[carlyfan]

Thanks for all the help everyone. We finally took the pictures today. I'm very pleased with how they turned out. Here it is!



What do you think?

[AnonymousKiwi1]

Hi Lisa

I think you've done an excellent job! What you've got here is one of the best "school" photos I've seen. Much more like a proper portrait. I'm afraid 'real' school photos are pumped out by bored photographers dealing with unwilling subjects.
Congrats!

Lisa (too).

[theosus]

Good job with the background! Ive got a couple of school pics around with that same bed-sheet look. You need to get photoshop out and write "olan mills" in the corner at an angle in gold script. I guess you could misspell it "oIam miIs". Of course - wal-mart won't print them if you do. Find a CVS instead.