Help with family portrait at church

[unfo]

Here's a tough one. I've been asked to take photos of each family at my church for showcasing in the foyer. They're featuring one family a month, so I have time to improve between shots, but my first shot is next Sunday and I'm drawing a blank.

For convenience they've asked that most of the shots be taken on church grounds after services, which means 2:00 in the afternoon. It's the middle of winter in Albuquerque, which means the weather outside is either really hot or really, really cold.

Outdoors...these are the two most interesting backgrounds I could find outside. Enough said. It's hard to find shade, and the sun is just behind that tree so I can't use my polarizing filter to darken the sky.





Indoors...Slivers of window light with ugly cream brick walls in every room, except the stage, which has maroon and black curtains (and not enough DOF to get a good bokeh).





Equipment...Nikon D90 w/single SB-800, remote triggered; two tripods, one sturdy, one not so much so; homemade reflectors, and the possibility of occasionally borrowing another remote-triggered strobe.

Oh, and some of my ideas require a full-length shot with an all-black or all-white background (minor details).

So..what I'm really asking is, how do I skip town without anyone noticing? Barring that, how can I set up some decent shots at this location with the limited equipment I have?

Thanks!
- unfo

[kencaleno]

You have choices-you could use fill-in flash as image below,or reflectors,or use some helpers to hold a background sheet for you . Regards, Ken

[unfo]

Now that I think about it, the framing of the steeple may be interesting on its own, but too distracting for a portrait. Unless I had someone climb the tree and turned it into a humorous perspective shot. Plus at the f-stop I need to get a blue sky, my SB-800 does nothing, even at full power. (Then again, I was in a hurry and didn't try very hard). Time for plan B.

[DennisBZ]

Given the equipment, I'd go for an indoor shoot with the sofa because it will be easy to pose your subjects and once you get your camera and light set to your desired exposure, it is only a matter of replicating them for all subsequent shoots. In other words, your exposure will be consistent as opposed to shooting outdoors where the weather may be a big factor in your exposure settings.

Use bounce lighting if the ceiling is white. By the way, you can also use those ugly cream brick walls as reflectors for sidelighting. Check this link to get an idea on bouncing flash: http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/f...ouncing-flash/ if you still haven't seen this yet.

Try doing test shots at least two days before your shoot to mark or block your spots (i.e. distance of sofa from wall, distance of camera from subjects, etc.) with tape. This also gives you enough time to find your desired camera and light settings. Bring along a friend or two as stand-ins. If it is possible, shoot tethered to a laptop so you can see image focus and sharpness better.

For group shots start with an aperture of f/5.6 going up to ensure all subjects in the group are within reasonable focus especially if you will have two rows of people. Using a large aperture will be tricky if one or two subjects are not within the focal plane of the lens. Most tips recommend shooting groups at f/8 and focusing 1/3 into the frame to achieve reasonably sharp images. And should you have two rows of people, Scott Kelby in volume 1 of his book recommends that you focus on the eyes of the people in the first row. I hope this helps.

I wish you well in your project.

[Swisstony10]

Skipping town to avoid embarrassment is MY speciality. You'll need a fast car, a dark and moonless night, a balaclava or ski-mask, a fake ID, a false beard and some hair-dye, some cash in used untraceable $5 and $10 bills (nothing bigger than that, you'll only draw attention to yourself), and you'd best get hold of a silenced .45, so that if anybody sees you, you can make sure they won't tell anybody.

[unfo]

Excellent tips, thanks! With the technical aspects out of the way, all that's left is the creativity part. Now, anyone know how I can grow a creative bone in my body in the next 4 days?? (If not, Swisstony's got me covered).

[DennisBZ]

Look into this site: http://jzportraits.home.att.net/

The images are out of date but the methods are very useful.

Cheers