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nonanone posted:I think a really important topic is how to interact with your model/person. By making them feel comfortable and beautiful in front of the camera, you can often coax a much better look out of them. Sincere compliments are always best, I've met more than couple photogs who think that by telling the girls how "hot/gorgeous/sexy" the girls are, they're complimenting them. No, you just come off creepy. Also, even men (read as: especially men) need some encouraging words too. I think part of the problem is that novice models have no idea what they look like when they're posing like this or that so they don't know how to work it well when you tell them to do something. I might say that it would be great to have a mirror behind me so they could see what they look like, but then they'd probably spend all their time staring at the mirror instead of the camera or wherever else they're supposed to be looking.
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Jul 15, 2009 07:36
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ConfusedUs posted:I'd typed up several hundred words on posing and was proofreading it when I stumbled up on this link. Wicked. Bookmarked.
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Jul 17, 2009 05:13
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Acc-Risk posted:That's exactly where I'm at now. I know what I like and not, but not really "why" Exactly. With that link that ConfusedUs posted, I had about fifteen lights going on in my head for every page I read.
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Jul 18, 2009 22:02
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Your wife has got to be the most unhappy model in the world or something.
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Aug 12, 2009 03:56
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benisntfunny posted:Once I shot a couple for their engagement, hideous couple at that, but they kept A hugging. You know where they lean over and hug like they're good ol' chaps or something. No matter how many times I tried to get them to move in and embrace each other it didn't work. So I ended up having to show them the beautiful arch between their bodies they were making to give them a clue. Good lord. They must have sex with all their clothes on or something. Maybe you should have put some nice music on, told them to slow dance and photographed that. And yeah, FragRag, definitely give Photoshopping out the shadow a try. It is a good shot. Might also want to try increasing the fill light a bit too.
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Aug 14, 2009 18:12
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8th-samurai posted:I did a shoot with a girl from Model Mayhem yesterday. The first model I have met on there that actually showed up. I like the second one. It looks like an album cover, especially if it were cropped square with just the top part left. I can imagine the text to the right of the model. The flare is fine the way you used it. It lends the photos a dreamy sort of quality, like a lazy summer afternoon. It's good that you didn't go overboard with it.
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Sep 14, 2009 19:15
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Large Hardon Collider posted:Yeah and most successful photographers are unbelievably talented what's your point? I like the black eye one. It's almost like a satire of glamour or fashion photography.
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Sep 25, 2009 04:35
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Luk3 posted:Did some family portraits this weekend... not all that happy with the result. The weather seemed to turn to total poo poo the moment the family stepped out of their car, the wind really picked up, it started to snow and it became bitterly cold. Noone was dressed for the weather. You cut off a toe a wee bit. Might have rotated what I assume is your sister a little bit so she's not square-on with the camera. Clone out some of the snowflakes flying in front of the people. Should have had everyone wipe their feet before taking the photo as well. Considering the conditions, you got them to look remarkably comfortable. And I knew you were in Alberta as soon as you mentioned the weather.
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Oct 15, 2009 04:47
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Luk3 posted:Not my sister, these aren't relatives. I can bring the toe back in, there's a bit of room to work since it's a 8x10 crop. I agree about the feet thing, I didn't notice the snow on the shoes until afterwards... To be honest, my criticisms aren't anything super major and any family should be happy to have a photo like that. Just some minor things that get missed in the heat of the moment. I think the snow on the shoe is the biggest thing. It looks messy, especially since they're dressed nicely. What you also might want to try is bringing the father forward a tad so the group is more like a semi-circle around that rock in the front. But yeah, you did a good job of making them not have that "Oh god I'm loving freezing" look on their faces.
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Oct 15, 2009 15:49
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fenner posted:Did my first proper portrait shoot today, it was 3 hours away and had no location or theme planned. My shots feel very mediocre and I have no idea how to go about processing them. They aren't a house on fire, but they're solid. If anything, the photos seem a bit languid. I take it she wasn't the most expressive person in the world?
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Oct 18, 2009 17:20
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nonanone posted:The different thought processes is also probably why I suck so bad at landscapes Oh well. Conversely, I have more of a portrait mentality so my landscapes suck.
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Oct 18, 2009 18:55
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I have a very hard time composing for them.
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BobTheCow posted:...oh god that was way too long, sorry about that. Feels good to get it off my chest though. If it makes you feel better, I feel your pain.
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Nov 3, 2009 07:22
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pwn posted:I'm set to shoot a musician for my paper to use in an article about him. This is my first time shooting someone formally in such a capacity, and I'm nervous because I don't want to make him/the photos generic. This would be a shoot with him and his guitar, though my editor said I pretty much could do whatever I wanted as long as it's interesting. I need some general advice, obviously I have to conceive it myself though. I'll be meeting him Monday afternoon and the photos are due by Wednesday preferably. Let the photo fit the genre of music and the personality of the musician. If they're wild and crazy, use a wide or ultra-wide lens to get that exaggeration of perspective. If it's a quiet singer-songwriter type, use a telephoto to get more of a "proper" portrait. You also have to decide whether you want to portray the musician or the musician's on-stage persona, which can be two totally different things. Pick a location that can inspire spontaneity.
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Nov 14, 2009 19:17
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pwn posted:It was more difficult than I anticipated to previsualize what I wanted in the end. I've started taking notes, and hopefully next time I shoot a new person I can at least meet them once before the shoot. Is that reasonable to expect out of editorial stuff like this, or is it always going to be this way? That's why it's good to have someone along to help you out, be it a friend or an actual photographer's assistant. They'll see things the little things to adjust or think of things you didn't because you were busy with technical stuff. Also, if you're trying to pitch a photo idea to the subject, a second opinion can help sway things big time.
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Nov 20, 2009 18:45
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pwn posted:You wanna clean up those ridiculously hard edges around her shoulders etc though. I assume that happened during post processing? LED lights can do crazy poo poo like that, assuming those are LED Christmas lights. I've seen it happen enough times in my concert photos.
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Nov 28, 2009 18:17
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Pompous Rhombus posted:It's not bad, but I'm not sure the "looking down at" perspective suits an author photo that well. Yeah, I'd agree. The photo should exude authority and that perspective makes the subject seem submissive, which is why you see a lot of pin-up and glamour photography done that way. Eye-level or even having the subject looking down slightly would give the subject a more "powerful" persona in the photo. That plus him looking up makes him wrinkle his forehead a little. The one that both you and your client like is closest to eye-level of the ones you've posted.
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Dec 2, 2009 22:29
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AIIAZNSK8ER posted:Here are some examples of stuff I've done recently. Christmas is a good time to prospect for business in the retail market. Those are some damned fine photos. If I were to pick apart anything, it's that the kids in the first photo look like they'd rather be stabbing themselves in the eye with a red-hot poker. Heh. Poker face.
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Dec 8, 2009 06:31
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Verman posted:This is when you manual focus or ask him to lift his glasses to get a focus point. Or tighten up the aperture a tad.
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Dec 8, 2009 23:01
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PlasticSun posted:Should I be looking more towards the reflector or the gel for the next piece of gear? I don't often shoot portraits but it looks like work is going to be asking me to do more of it soon. Gels are so cheap it's not even worth debating over whether to buy or not. It's more of a matter of exactly which ones to buy.
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Dec 9, 2009 18:01
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It's a textbook example of how much shadow you can use before it becomes too much. The shadow is there for effect, but you can still see plenty of detail in it.
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Dec 10, 2009 18:09
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Whitezombi posted:I'm loving my new 50D and 580EX II! I hear that. I started out working with Vivitar 285HVs in manual mode and upgrading to a E-TTL-II flash was incredible. Suddenly I didn't have to worry about small lighting details like flash power, distance to subject and all that.
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Dec 28, 2009 17:24
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The Canon 135mm f/2.8 soft focus lens is actually not a bad portrait lens. It must have been designed from the ground up as a portrait lens because I can't think of why else you would want soft focus except for maybe flower photos or something. The lens is light, cheap, compact and it's not razor-sharp, but that's not necessarily a bad thing in portrait photography. Another down side is that AF is awfully slow on the lens as it seems to take forever to go from lock to lock compared to other lenses. Again, not necessarily a bad thing if your subject is relatively static. EDIT: Holy crap, I take back what I said about it being cheap. It was cheap but it seems to have rocketed in price in the last while. It seems to have doubled in price up to $500-$600. What the gently caress? http://www.photoprice.ca/product/00012 HPL fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Dec 29, 2009 |
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Dec 29, 2009 21:34
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Jahoodie posted:Why do 90% of sorority girls always do the pop a squat off to the side, hands on the knees move? I feel like there is some big secret I am missing out on- who told them that weird combo looks good? I think it probably makes a lot more sense when they're wearing a dress. It looks strange with pants though.
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Jan 27, 2010 19:23
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Pompous Rhombus posted:If you think sorority girls are bad, try college football players You need to bring along a healthy-chested woman to the shoot. Before:      Ta-da!  After: 
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Jan 27, 2010 20:33
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Tziko posted:Some shots for work. I like the way the green banner bulges a bit. Makes it look kind of like a button. A jolly, candy-like button.
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Feb 10, 2010 23:45
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Ric posted:These are some shots from a series I'm doing of people at work. I've put them small here for the sake of everyone's scrolling, but please click the links and look at them bigger. You somehow made the most mundane jobs look epic.
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Feb 11, 2010 22:16
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AIIAZNSK8ER posted:Do you think either an 80/20 or a Gary Fong yogurt tub would've been a better application here? I hate to sound like a Demb shill because I promote his products enough here, but situations like that are where it shines because you can adjust the balance of light easily and exactly since it pivots.
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Feb 12, 2010 02:01
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AIIAZNSK8ER posted:werd, which model do you you have? does that mega size become a pain at all? I have an older one from before they redesigned everything. It's between the Photojournalist and the Big. It's no bigger than any other flash bouncer and is lighter than a lot of them. What's nice is that when you're not using it, you can fold it back so it's not sticking up. I've been using it at concerts for about a year and it has held up well, even in mosh pits and with beer flying around.
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Feb 12, 2010 02:49
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McMadCow posted:I posted this one in the Feb PAD thread. Shot this about 3 years back, but printed it for the first time last week. That's pretty sweet. It almost has an "Ophelia" kind of feel to it.
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Mar 3, 2010 22:27
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torgeaux posted:Look at how light her skin is in the last shot. For me, that's a negative, as she as a nice color to her skin but it's washed out. The lightness isn't the issue so much as the color cast. It's a bit blueish-greenish. The only thing I'd watch out for is the wrinkle in the forehead in the shots where she kind of looking upwards. HPL fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Mar 4, 2010 |
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Mar 4, 2010 16:47
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Not a fan of the different colour temperatures either. Her face is kind of bluish. I would have put her right in front of that bright spot on the wall to outline her better as well as frame her between the doors and ceiling. That's a tough thing to figure out on the fly though.
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Mar 8, 2010 18:05
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jackpot posted:Aim a hotshoe flash at the ceiling: avoid horrible shadows behind the subject, but end up with bags under the eyes. How to avoid, when you've got no options/room for off-camera lighting? Examples A, B: You can fix it somewhat by having a white card on the flash to provide some fill. The card should be parallel to the flash head so the flash can project up and off the ceiling, but the card will catch the light going backwards and reflect it forwards for fill.
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Mar 29, 2010 19:08
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jackpot posted:I'm sure one of the add-on bounce cards will work better than the built-in, but it's nice to know I've got an alternative. I probably should've asked about this before taking 400 photos at a party yesterday. Then again the birthday girl was turning 100, so at least I can't be blamed for the bags under her eyes. It should simply because it's so much larger. It won't cost you much if at all to try it out, so why not?
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Mar 29, 2010 21:09
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jackpot posted:Oh I'm definitely going to do it; I just meant if I forget to bring a card it's nice to know something's built in. Not that it would be hard to find a white index card and some tape, even if I did forget to bring something. In a pinch, you can even use your hand to bounce the flash.
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Mar 29, 2010 22:34
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dunkman posted:I am just starting out and I'm terrible and I have no idea what I'm doing: You and me both, brother. Merch shoot for a local web site:    Rest of set: http://www.mikechow.com/Nature-and-Stuff/Baked-in-BC-March-19-2010/11702287_ByKXx
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Apr 2, 2010 18:15
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notlodar posted:HPL, I think those are a little bit too contrasty. maybe because they are too warm/red, I mostly see it in the more yellow areas (which effects the red areas...) I had to crank up the contrast a bit because of the white seamless. I was getting light spill around the edges of the models because there wasn't enough space to get them far enough from the background plus it was rather foggy in there so the whole room was diffusing light. I agree with you about the yellow areas. One culprit in the third photo was that I was using hard light (gridded 285HVs) so that made the transition from light to dark a lot harsher. Plus by the time I was doing the black seamless shots, it was even more foggy in there as you can see from the light area on the right side of the photo. I don't know why, but every studio-type of shoot I've done seems to end up as a huge foggy haze by the end. I considered going with less saturation, but I really dug the bright colour of the lipstick and the rich blue of the laboratory glassware. The models weren't exactly olive-skinned sun worshippers, so turning down the saturation also made them look incredibly pale. Plus I was going for more of a film-like colour cast. I used the Provia colour setting in DxO Optics. I definitely could have put a little more work into the post-processing but I wanted to try to see how good I could get it with minimal post work. In the future, I'd definitely go with less contrast if only because I'd get the lighting better. This was the first time I've tried a seamless background shoot.
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Apr 2, 2010 18:39
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For my shots, I was a little restricted in that the shoot was largely for catalog-type shots with emphasis on the shirts, specifically the logo, so that's why they're more squarely posed than I might have done normally.
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Apr 3, 2010 01:51
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dik-dik posted:I really like them. Care to describe the lighting setup you used? For the white background ones, one 285HV on both sides of the models, aimed at the background at roughly 45 degrees. One Sunpak 544 above the model on a softbox aimed down. Nothing major. Reichstag posted:There's a lot of distance between a good high contrast portrait and most of what's been posted lately, which have just looked like Mall Portraits. I'll be the first to admit I've got a lot to learn. I appreciate notlodar's comments because until I posted the photos here, everyone else that has seen them has been going bonkers over them, but they're not photographers so it's great to hear nitpicks.
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Apr 3, 2010 03:22
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notlodar posted:I think the fog came from all the pot It was tobacco, I swear!  Yes, if I were to do it all over again, I'd probably have one flash aimed at each quarter of the background. My flashes have 1/8 plug adapters so it would be easy to rig them up to only use one radio trigger per side.
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Apr 3, 2010 15:23
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TsarAleksi posted:Honestly the speed with which people around here seem to gain traction photographically is kind of amazing-- it took me years to get basic principles down that seem to take weeks for a lot of people. It helps when the information is easier to find and discuss than ever before. Sites like Strobist are huge for that. Plus the instant feedback of digital is a big help.
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Apr 3, 2010 18:32
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