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I am also not a big fan of the curtain, it looks kinda amateur/old fashioned. The color is nice, but competes a little heavily with the model, I keep staring at it. I agree that it needs a hair light, maybe just some more light in general. Not bad, just needs a little more oomph. Hard not to get a chick in leather holding a sword or whatever not look cheesy though...
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Aug 21, 2010 22:07
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Interrupting Moss posted:Musician portrait thingy. It's a bit cliche, but I think we ended up with something nice. Only thing I don't like is that little shadow created by her ear. I should have pulled that light around. I didn't notice the ear shadow til you said something about it, now I can't stop staring at it. The colors are very nice though. This a quick snap for a friend's fashion blog, shame it's a bit soft but looks ok web-res:  Here were some makeup tests (not thrilled with the mua):  
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Sep 9, 2010 00:15
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AtomicManiac posted:I've never worked with a MUA, what makes them Good/bad, and what do you look for? Well, first of all, there's the obvious skill-level. Are they able to fix any skin problems, draw attention away from problem areas, do they have a good grasp of different color palettes (especially important to me, are they good with other skin ethnicities other than white) The less obvious stuff is sometimes more important: how long do they take, do they take direction well, are they creative? If I ask them to push it, are they going to go for it, or stay safe? In this case, she was pretty unresponsive, I had to do a fair amount of skin cleanup and the lip color wasn't good. She was also pretty slow, and had no idea how to do makeup on a guy or anything creative at all.
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Sep 10, 2010 05:53
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Yeah, I'm a girl, so while I'm not super into make up, I have some experience with it. I think the best way is just to look up the basics (easily found online) or even just practice on your own face. HPL, what you want is to get some concealer and some foundation. The trick is to match the skin color, don't apply too heavily (concealer is for blemishes, foundation is for shine). But yeah, easy to look all this stuff up and just try it out  another option is just asking the model to do the basic makeup, most girls know how to.But yeah, a good mua is worth their weight in gold, and they'll know how to work with you when you say something like "ummm yeah can it be kinda more mysterious-like" or something vaguely creative.
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Sep 11, 2010 07:15
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If it's a "real" show, you'll have enough lighting that you won't need a flash. I'd use the 70-200 and maybe a monopod. Shoot the models as they come down the runway, not when they pose at the end. Thats about it. It's not really hard, once you get the settings figured out it's all exactly the same. If it is too dark, you'll have to use a flash and wait till they come down the runway, but if you can avoid flash at all, that's best.
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Sep 17, 2010 02:02
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Paragon8 posted:These are from a test I really like this one She's got a great pose here.
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Oct 27, 2010 22:35
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Model test! Need. more. models in Michigan... 
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Nov 7, 2010 23:39
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Thanks for the comments guys, I think I'll work on cleaning up the background. We were going for awkward because she doesn't work with her body that well.
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Nov 8, 2010 19:28
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Ive heard that attitude a lot, but I've also had a model tell me a story about how this guy said he was going to have a shoot with like 9 girls, and when she got dropped off, there was no one else there, and then he locked her in his house when she tried to leave so... Basically if an escort is a problem, I'll ask them to leave the area, but otherwise, I'm not going to begrudge a model for wanting to bring someone along. I will not hesitate to tell them to leave the shoot though.
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Jan 7, 2011 19:40
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That is true, I mean, I don't really run into the problem that often as it is, presumably because I'm female and about as threatening as a twig, but now that I think about it, it never happens on big shoots anyways, I suppose I'd be really annoyed if it did.
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Jan 7, 2011 20:27
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AIIAZNSK8ER posted:To get those blurry backgrounds, it's easier with a lens that has a larger maximum aperture. Something like a 50mm f/1.8 can be had for around $100. Get one take your kid outside, be amazed, and then report back to us. Oh yea, that reminds me, all these photos are inside with a pop up flash, so it's good considering. Really gorgeous kid photos are outside playing in the sunshine. Sunlight is cheap, plentiful, and good for you. These two are the best. The person is the focus (these are more business owners I'm assuming?) and they look comfy and bright, and with enough context. The first one is a little crowded feeling, and the lighting brings out the JODY'S POPCORN so it competes with her face for attention. In the second, the light that's on grabs attention, and the composition of light feels... uncomfortable, with the dark background. Again, I feel like she could have used some more light. The first two of the second set also have the same problems, I think you should light the subject more or even just dodge them in post to bring em out a little.
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Feb 4, 2011 05:24
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AIIAZNSK8ER posted:Thanks everyone, the books are ones that she wrote. The article is about her consulting business, which aren't directly connected with her books. I didn't think the background would be so distracting, or the glasses in her hand would be so awkward. But now I will keep those in mind. Just to add my 2 cents, I also think that you should choose between either going more in or going less in if that makes sense. Either make it ALL ABOUT THE PERSON or ALL ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT in which the person plays a small part and the items/background should all have significance. Right now it feels really inbetween, where there's enough background to distract from the person, but not enough to tell a story. I think for that portrait, maybe a better idea would have been her mostly isolated at a desk, with the books placed very conspicuously so that viewers can know that it has a lot of significance. Or maybe set up like in a book signing set-up or similar that gives us a familiar context.
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Feb 23, 2011 18:18
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Yeah those are all pretty much the most nose flattering angle. Not much you can do without photoshop fuckery or carefully explaining that it's not a big deal.
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Feb 25, 2011 00:20
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DuckBOT posted:
I think starting off with less is better. You don't need half those lights. I mean, if you want that light-pumped look it's cool, but it should be done with purpose and intent. You've kind of lost her dimensionality.
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Mar 6, 2011 20:02
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That first one is baller, makes him look like an awesome villain.
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Apr 16, 2011 02:49
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I think people sometimes get too obsessed with sharpening (and all sorts of other "proper" things too), and although sometimes it adds to have things tack sharp, sometimes softer is nicer, especially when we're talking about people. I used to sharpen out of a desire for "correctness", but now I rarely do.
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Apr 29, 2011 02:38
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Paragon8 posted:How does that have anything to do with what I said and what the poster asked? I have to agree with PIMM, the way you said that makes it sound like the straight male point of view is more interesting because you're think there's "enough gay photographers shooting men" despite the fact that the vast majority of ALL photographs (especially commercial work) are shot by straight men. Also, I think the point is kind of stupid. Women photographers don't have trouble shooting women, and yet a lot of male photographers are extremely uncomfortable with shooting guys... why? It makes me wonder how they're dealing with their female models, because if you're having trouble shooting one gender, chances are you're not doing well with the other too. Part of this is because our media is absolutely saturated with dead looking "sexy" girls so if there's no connection with a women in a photograph, as long as she's "sexy," it's still a good photograph. Thoughts aside, I'd suggest that the best way to learn this stuff if you don't know it intuitively is to look into traditional art/theatre/etc to inform yourself, and also to learn how to make people comfortable. You should be able to meet someone and make them laugh after 5 minutes. There's a huge difference you can feel when the model feels comfortable that will allow you to draw out better poses, better expressions.
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Aug 19, 2011 14:46
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Speaking of me not wanting to sleep with my models (be they male or female)   There's more on flickr, but I liked these best.
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Aug 21, 2011 03:13
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What I like to do to get facial expressions is to describe a very detailed and convoluted hypothetical situation. I find it helps it gets the model to relax (and laugh!) and gets them in the right mindset. i.e. You've just managed to outrun and slip away from a mob hunting you and now are trying to blend in with the scenery after donning your new disguise as an innocent civilian. Give me your best "don't notice me I'm totally cool and part of this wall" look. Edit: Oh btw, mcmadcow, love those.
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Aug 25, 2011 16:36
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Gryi posted:These are amazing. To contribute, crossposted from wedding photo thread:
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Aug 29, 2011 04:35
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The face is definitely (usually) the most important part. I just like to keep my highlight blinkies on and if you have the histogram on for the brief review on the screen after you take a photo, it gives you a much better sense of exposure. Having said that, I think you're totally missing the point. If the problem is her face needs more light in comparison to her clothes, add light to her face. In the case of a backlit sun, a reflector or anything that reflects light will do nicely. Why worry about editing when it's so easy to fix the first time?
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Sep 13, 2011 19:04
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CarrotFlowers posted:Well $15 is pretty good :P I say I don't want to spend more money, then I convince myself that I can skimp the money from elsewhere. Oh photography... You can literally use a piece of printer paper or a piece of cardboard covered in tin foil, or one of those car window reflector thingies. I agree with Paragon too that a lot of times a reflector isn't necessary (I often don't use one too) but sometimes the sun just doesn't want to cooperate and a reflector takes 2 seconds to make life a million times better.
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Sep 13, 2011 21:26
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The correct response is probably "oh sorry, I'm not a pro photographer. Would you like some recommendations to one?" I mean, if you haven't really done portrait photography and you don't plan on being a pro, why photograph someone's kids when you have no experience, just for the money?
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Sep 22, 2011 13:24
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The other thing is doing favors for friends can complicate things too. They'll expect "special rates", get mad if they're disappointed, and so on. It makes things difficult socially. I had a friend ask me if I could do headshots for her cousin in 3 days for free; I had to be all like "so sorry I'm way too busy!" and now she's pouty.
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Sep 23, 2011 05:24
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I find that as long as you have the inside edge of whatever part you're cropping, your brain will naturally fill in the rest. That's why top-of-the-head crops and outside-of-the-arm crops don't bother me and draw the focus more towards the person; you're using the inside body edge itself as a framing tool. Maybe it is more of a fashion-thing, but a huge part of portraiture is fashion photography, and I think it's perfectly acceptable. The part that bothers me about that first photo has nothing to do with limbs (well maybe a little, the one tucked behind her), but rather the way her neck is projected forward and strained by holding her head up. She's supporting herself by her other arm (I think) in kind of a strenuous, uncomfy way, and I think if you tried doing that for long it'd be really uncomfortable, so it looks uncomfortable to me. But her expression is very strong.
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Sep 28, 2011 15:51
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Auditore posted:Yea, I always hear stuff going around like oh man strobist strobist you need a whole lighting setup to take portraits. I'm never sure why either, considering TONS of portraits are all natural light or one light, very rarely do you see 16 light setups for people.
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Sep 29, 2011 17:41
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RangerScum posted:Definitely- if some of you want to see scenes that have some serious lighting applied to them, check out Gregory Crewdson's work. Amateurs or even semi-professionals do not do stuff like this, as they require entire crews and huge budgets. Yeah, I can't imagine what kind of budgets these set-ups have. If you have friends in construction maybe you could pull it off... I remember they were filming one of the big movies (Ides of March, at Umich) and they had these HUGE lights surrounding the entire building, pouring in from every single window.
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Oct 1, 2011 03:55
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Mightaswell posted:Tried to take a decent portrait of my kid. I was just messing around, otherwise I would have picked a nice backround, but I do like this pose. I think it could be a little brighter. Cute kid! Here's a portrait that I really liked. Posted big because I mean, why bother otherwise 
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Oct 24, 2011 00:05
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Thanks, may lighten that up. I'm glad that shoot wasn't a total waste of time because I worked with the most unprofessional make-up artist I have ever seen. I should've guessed something was up when she said she was going to send me examples of her work and she never "got around to it." She was also going on about how she usually just demands RAWs and edits them herself, and how some photographers take a whole TWO WEEKS to get photos to her, one of the models was her friend "omg it's our first photoshoot together!" it was just so frustrating. I'm only going to give her the bare minimum that's for sure.
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Oct 24, 2011 22:29
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I like it, and the gradient too. Looks very nice and clean.
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Oct 31, 2011 21:54
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Have you thought about putting together a narrative? I think that could be really cool.
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Nov 12, 2011 03:31
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The 2nd to last one is really nice, especially in terms of body language and expression. Isn't the 135 the best?  They all look great though on some the composition is a bit off (side cut off, feet cut off etc), also the armpit one is a little awkward.
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Nov 14, 2011 17:58
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Paragon8 posted:just do the exact same thing except have him sit up straight and frame the bottom at nipple height. This, not that hard people. It's just a headshot.
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Dec 2, 2011 03:10
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The hair is fine. The main things I see is that the light wrap is way too strong, it overpowers your edges in a non-intentionally bad way and washes out your colors. There's also some poo poo on the background of the 2nd you might want to clean up. The last one, the composition is fine, but the horizon is tilted, making everything feel a little unsteady.
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Dec 29, 2011 09:55
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Subjunctivitis posted:Ah, yes, the first 2 are too warm. I thought I took care of that to look more pleasant in ACR, but probably not enough. (I processed them down from 6500 to 5500 just now, and they do look better, without losing her skin tone.) Well the thing is the reason why she looks hunched over when the photo is straight is because she is. I think that (very) occasionally the whole crazy angle can work, but in this case I just feel like everything is sliding over. It doesn't add anything except that it looks like everything is on an angle. This is, of course, just my personal opinion. If the angle is that important, perhaps you could move in closer and also edit the horizon so that it's all ocean, making the horizon unimportant altogether. It's just at such a prominent place in the photo, right at her head.
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Dec 30, 2011 18:41
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Crossposting these here, since I'd like to hear some thoughts because I'm biased because of the people. These are my grandparents, and I feel like my grandpa's personality comes across really well, but perhaps not my grandma's since she's got alzheimers (and she's at the stage where she's forgetting things, but still remembers that's she's got an illness and forgets everything, thus the sadness). 
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Jan 5, 2012 20:25
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Thanks, intimacy is what I was shooting for (haha arrrgh pun). Chair was unfortunate side of effect of the moment, but I wanted to keep a specific balance that wouldn't let me crop in further. I might play around with that more. Also on B&W vs Color, I definitely don't think one is easier than the other; I think it's just easier to ignore bad tones on a B&W photo than it is on a color one. But textures and tones are so much more important if there's no color to distract from it.
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Jan 5, 2012 20:40
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These are really nice, well done, especially the last one. Much better than a lot of 365 projects I've seen so far.
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Jan 13, 2012 09:03
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jackpot posted:Any book or site recommendations for learning more about product photography, specifically jewelry? I realize this is the portrait thread but it seemed like my best bet. A friend of mine has a jewelry business and I've been shooting her stuff, mostly in a lightbox I made. But every time I have to shoot her wearing anything (rings, necklaces, bracelets) I turn into a damned idiot; I literally have no idea how to pose her, how to frame the shot, etc. I've tried googling it but even then I'm having a hard time finding anything. Your best bet is going to be looking at jewelry ads, lots of them. It's the same as any other commercial portraiture, except there are certain poses that stand out. Hand to the face to show off a ring or bracelet is one. The biggest difference is that you're looking for the jewelry to be shown off, so it needs to be a bigger part of the picture. If it's just for product listings though, then just focus on have good even lighting, and take the photo completely straight and simple, with the model smiling. That's it, people just need to see how relatively big it is and how it looks being worn on a person. Head and shoulders straight forward for a necklace or earrings, and hand and wrist (maybe doing something like writing or something else to spice it up) for bracelet/ring.
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Feb 15, 2012 00:54
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CarrotFlowers posted:Cyberbob, I really like all of those. Nice lighting especially on the first 2! Oddly enough, I feel like the black and white gives it a very composited look. It's almost like the background is made of paper. Still a great expression/shot though.
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Feb 18, 2012 00:50
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