What a doll ! Can you tell me more about the lighting please….looks nice. Do you have an umbrella ?
Nice work, George! And an adorable grandson.
I’m not sure it’s correct to say you’re staying out of trouble, though. Aren’t you spending bunches and bunches of money on all of your new toys?! 🙂
Beth you are so right about the spending. i’ve actually convinced myself i don’t need any more lenses, lights etc. but i DO need a couple of differant muslins. the lighting i used was 2-500W tungsten flood lights bounced into umbrellas and 1-250W flood on a boom (no umbrella) shined directly onto the background. although these lights are not "pro" quality they seem to produce a nice soft light, which i like. with some more practice and differant light positions i think i can get the pics to come out even better.
George,
For your first, its terrific! I haven’t even got that far yet.
Terry
Well done, George.Very well done for a first time.
You are using a very flat lighting. That’s the easiest way to do it and practised by many professionals as well.
You might however improve your lighting by adding a little more shadow in the face. Think of a face like it were a table tennis ball. With soft frontal lighting you will see a flat white circle without any shape. As soon as the lighting comes slightly away from the camera axis, one side will display a shadow and suddenly it becomes three dimensional. Generally lighting at an angle of about 15 degrees from above and between 15 and 45 degrees from the side produces the best portrait lighting. Almost all the portraits on my website have been made with this lighting.
So your light should be placed a little lower; now this portrait is lacking a catch light in the eyes and that’s what would have made a young rascal like this more vivid.
I don´t know about the quality of your knees, but bending these knees and shooting from eye level of your subject is usually more pleasing.
Nevertheless, a pleasing portrait!
Leen
Hey George …
Like your portraits … you are doing great!!
Wendy
Leen, thanks for the suggestions, i will try moving the lights as you said and see how it works. best part of digital is i can shoot all i want, see my results right away and make any changes i need quickly. give a boy a camera, a few lights and who knows what will happen. again, thanks for all the encouragment i have recieved from everyone here.
George, don’t try too much at the same time. To most pro photographers it takes several years to produce a first decent portrait!
The best advice I have to offer: examine carefully what the light does to your subject.
A friend of mine and I both stage seminars on portraiture to professional photographers and at the end we both use the same sentence: "If you don’t see it, it isn’t there."
A few weeks ago a got a telephone call from the UK and the photographer who did attend one of my seminars in October told me he suddenly understood the meaning of the sentence. If you are not able to see it, it might be there, but just not for you; it takes a lot of time to learn how to see.
Change your lighting slowly and try to find a patient sitter… 😉 Digital is the easiest way to learn; I wished it was there 30 years ago!
Leen
Leen
a patient sitter, now that is something i don’t have. just taking my camera out of the bag causes my dog to run and hide. can you imagine what that does to human subjects. it does have advantages though, have company that stays too long…….take my camera out………mother inlaw comes to visit………take my camera out……….problems solved!!!! i do understand what you mean by changing the light positions and see what it does/how it effects the overall picture. as you said, right now my lighting is flat so i will have to experiment a little and try to introduce some shadows on my unwilling subjects. overall i am pleased with my results, but i know i can do better. i guess that old saying is true "all good things come in time" and with practice & patence my shots will improve. thanks for taking the time out of what i am sure is a busy schedule to give me some much needed advice.
Leen,
Since you seem to not mind giving advice, would you mind if I ask you to look at this image and maybe give some ideas or thoughts.
A guy wanted a picture of a wood carving his father had done years ago. So I took a picture and then isolated the duck and set it on a neutral background so there was nothing to distract from the carving and gave it a shadow to give it some depth.
http://home.comcast.net/~peted1/wsb/html/view.cgi-photo.html –SiteID-1289531.html Pete
Well, I don’t mind doing some photo critique. I’ve been trained in that field in the UK and the professional standards of photo critique in England are at a very high level.
I looked at your image and there was something wrong, but I couldnot point out what it was. First thing I usually do is checking where the light comes from. Then I noticed. There is a reflection of light on the top and on the sides of te duck. The shadow however indicates the light is coming from under the camera and that is rather unusual (provided you don’t live down under). 😉
Obviously you used a mixture of flash and natural lighting with the on camera flash being the main light source. Placing your subject close to a (simulated) background will cause sharply edged shadows. Your soft shadow however is suggesting a rather broad way of lighting.
Most important part of a photo critique is telling how one can do it in a better way. Photographing shiny objects usually can be best done outside with natural lighting with an overcast sky. An overcast sky is the largest (and cheapest) softbox one can imagine.
Leen
Thanks Leen. Other than another shot outdoors maybe I will try moving the duck up on that background and then move that shadow around a bit.
