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thetzar posted:Portraiture is kind of how I got into photography when I was shooting film. It's just a hobby for me, but it's a fun one. Someone earlier in the thread (ConfusedUs, I think) mentioned how any lucky beginner can take a good portrait through trial and error — pros can do it without thinking. I think that's true, and I'm trying to make it from the former to the latter, but I'm not there yet. Over the last year or two I've been playing more and more with controlled lighting. Anyway, I sometimes think that I've hit a plateau, and I can't seem to push past it. I'd love to get people's thoughts. I like what you do. e: Some of your shots there are underexposed and I don't see a creative reason for doing so. JAY ZERO SUM GAME fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Aug 24, 2009 |
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Aug 24, 2009 20:52
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ConfusedUs posted:I found that video absolutely useless. Don't. loving. Touch. Them.
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Aug 24, 2009 20:54
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Composition is far, far, better in the first shot. Just enough negative space to the left, face slightly to the right, and the hair makes a nice line creating a circle: hair, neck of blouse, back to the neck, and up again.
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Oct 30, 2009 00:26
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Ah, and just so that we don't get caught up in analysis alone, I really like the first one. Second one is good and most clients would likely be happy with it, but after seeing the first one it's less attractive. Black cards on the left and right would get a tiny bit of definition like Paragon8 mentioned, and may be worth testing before your shoot.
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Oct 30, 2009 00:33
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Cover shoot where everything went wrong, but we made lemonade from lemons. Renzi Stone, former University of Oklahoma basketball player, now big guy at and OKC HR firm. 
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Nov 10, 2009 17:06
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Yeah, the Dell logo is being removed along with some other polishing work this afternoon. We originally had a nice meeting room reserved, but because Renzi was running about an hour late we couldn't use the location. Then most of the athletes had to leave, due to it getting late. We went to the office next door and asked if they had a space we could use; there was a warehouse that was better than anything else available on short notice. We cleaned out the back of it, moved a desk and a monitor back there, and shot the athletes without Renzi. When he showed up we shot him without the athletes, then put it together in post. It all worked out, but the original idea was so much better conceived. Alas. I at least talked the editor out of having Renzi wear an old basketball jersey. e: a few more  
JAY ZERO SUM GAME fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Nov 10, 2009 |
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Nov 10, 2009 17:48
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Sports magazine, former basketball forward for local university, and the feel wanted by the editor was the reasoning. e: and that depends on your perception of HR guys...
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Nov 10, 2009 21:39
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DJExile posted:I like everyone in the background, but coach's face seems... off somehow. Is the girl on the left holding a cell phone? I'd love to hear the story about this. The shot has a lot of potential. He's not the coach, he's a former basketball player for OU. I guess I should explain this a bit more. Renzi played for OU in the late nineties. He was known in the area very well and wasn't going to have a pro career, just like most high school and NCAA athletes. The feature was to focus on his success as a former athlete and we wanted to portray him as a strong executive whose on the court presence and leadership were working for his career. That's why the lighting is so strong on him and he is posed in a powerful manner. We wanted to then show the athletes as watching what he was doing, with different attitudes of interest, surprise, concentration, whatever. A couple of them are holding their phones, one is holding the basketball preview issue of the magazine, one is holding a basketball. High school athletes are difficult to work with. They're often extremely rigid and reluctant to show much emotion, except the girls who will often only smile and giggle. Their posing and emotions aren't quite what we wanted, but given the limited time and constraints we were happy. Renzi was really into what we were after and enjoyed it. He has had plenty of bright and proper executive photos and really enjoyed the shoot and the images, which I was also happy with because he is now interested in having me do work for his HR firm. The magazine itself is decidedly positive: they do not publish any negative stories or even marginally negative stories about any school or athlete. Also, most of the images are often shot with on camera flash or available light by not-so professional photographers, so when I shoot they always stress that they want more moody, powerful, and contrast-ridden images. Hence the "dramatic" dial turned to 11. Unfortunately, we're not always able to just turn out portrait-style photos. We have to portray as many schools and athletes as possible to push as many people to pick up the magazine. Vype very much focuses on branding, of course, and it's brought up constantly. I do my best to control it when they go overboard, such as the desired shot with Renzi wearing an Oklahoma jersey and piling up a poo poo ton of old magazine around him and even hanging a "Vype" banner in the background. The cover shot has been edited a bit, but will likely see more after it leaves my hands and before printing. e: For those of you that haven't done it a lot, some editors/marketing staff know what they want and by God they're going to get it, no matter how awful it looks. I shot a Chevrolet dealership ad featuring a football dteam a couple weeks ago and there was a GMC truck among all the Chevrolets. This was a HUGE PROBLEM; it didn't occur to me or any of the other dealership staff onsite that it would be an issue. We couldn't reshoot, so there was a of fun post work to turn the front of that GMC into a Chevrolet. There was also and issue to a guy's expression, he "looked bored and like he didn't want to be there." That was the marketing man's perception: any fan or parent or whomever would know he was trying to look cool or whatever, but to the marketer it was more dangerous that a local talent would look disinterested in his product, so it was a must fix. It's a strange world sometimes. e2: just so you know I'm not crazy, here's a nice safe fluffy shot 
JAY ZERO SUM GAME fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Nov 10, 2009 |
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Nov 10, 2009 22:03
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Technically, it depends on focal length. Aesthetically, strong DOF has its place. I'm reminded of this photo of Ray Lewis by Walter Iooss.  That image is also a great example of how different a print is from an image on your monitor. I've stared at that photo for god knows how long in print. It is powerful.
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Nov 11, 2009 16:37
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Then, by the numbers, the 50mm f/1.4 is the best bet. You don't have to use the largest aperture, you know. I'd want to see images from a 2x crop sensor with that lens first, though, were I you.
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Nov 11, 2009 17:18
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This is from a sports shoot, but this one with no basketball I like quite a bit. One big umbrella to the right, another light on the white wall. 
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Dec 10, 2009 01:32
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I'd like to say I chose the wardrobe and everything but frankly, the only thing I knew going into the shoot was that it was a female and I hopefully would have a light-toned wall. She was just a powerful person. Seriously, 6'2", can dunk the ball (for real, not just a slightly higher layup), holds state record in high jump, and just gets by on raw athleticism. Before her first collegiate practice she didn't even know to shoot free throws with her fingertips. And she helped her HS win the state basketball tournament. Thanks fellas
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Dec 10, 2009 18:38
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Cyberbob posted:I'm in the middle of post for this shot I took of a charming Englishman who had some tales to tell as he poured coffee crystals into his plastic bottle of milk. I can't tell because of the size, but it seems like the focus is on his beard and not his eyes as well, so that could be tough to overcome. Could just be an effect of the above mentioned tonal quality, though. I like the photo, so if you can get his eyes to pop more, I think you'd have a keeper. e: I tried to pm this to you, but alas I did a B&W conversion on this. I use Silver Efex pro with six control points: one over each eye, two on his beard, one on his forehead, and another on his jacket in lower left. I increased contrast overall, pulled brightness a bit, and upped structure a bit, and made the beard darker and eyes brighter. If you used the original RAW file it would look much better, the compresses JPEG just doesn't have as much information. Some various fiddling for about 5 minutes got me this, which could be improved, too:  It doesn't look like you messed with it much out of camera, actually. Post-processing is okay, go hog wild, just do it right. JAY ZERO SUM GAME fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Dec 22, 2009 |
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Dec 22, 2009 15:14
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Interrupting Moss posted:go hog wild, just do it right. dude has been into the spice too much
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Dec 22, 2009 23:32
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That poo poo is awful.
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Jan 4, 2010 23:28
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Back when I was in school, my first photo class instructor wanted us to go take pictures of people on the sidewalk. The class was like "okay." And then he said no telephoto lenses, no photos of the back of people's heads, we had to engage them. You could feel the "oh gently caress what" feeling pass over. Most people fudged it and it was awful (including my attempts). However, I was not a major and knew didly loving squat about photography history and would have struggled to name any photographer other than Adams. I look back and am embarrassed. Like Reichstag mentions, it's so interesting to take pictures of people on the street (or in a park, or whatever). It's stupid to be nervous. loving do it, you'll get over yourself after doing it once or twice.
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Jan 22, 2010 04:43
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brad industry posted:Photographers should never give up their copyright, you're a contractor not an employee. Get an understanding in writing that you are being payed as a contractor. They may whine about accounting/taxes/you making this too difficult, but it's the right way.
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Jan 23, 2010 22:44
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Groups are the worst, there are so many problems and I've seen very, very, few that are interesting. The interesting ones have required DAYS of preparation that most groups simply don't understand/care about. So you did well enough, I'd say. e: and it's their own drat fault they didn't look at the camera after being told 6,000 times and taking several shots JAY ZERO SUM GAME fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Jan 27, 2010 |
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Jan 27, 2010 18:53
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AIIAZNSK8ER posted:These are from a company party. How do they look? Gel your flash to match the ambient (tungsten, it looks like) if you're going to shoot at a large aperture or slow shutter speed. I'm pretty sure that's why the lady's forehead is a cool tone. You can see the same effect at the top of the wall in the second shot. They're all slightly underexposed. The wall is entirely unnecessary. I also wouldn't get so close with a 50mm. All I see is that lady's nose. Whoever who shot those for will be very happy, however.
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Feb 11, 2010 15:59
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I'll echo in that I like all of those, with the caveat that the highlights are a little bright in a few. Good ideas and composition.
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Feb 12, 2010 21:43
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I like all three of those a lot, particularly the first one. Well done.
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Feb 22, 2010 18:29
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scotch chat Now I like the photos even more. That fellow looks like he would appreciate a nice Laphroaig, too.
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Feb 22, 2010 18:56
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I only like the last one. Perhaps because I was conditioned by the first set, but I don't think the smiling goes with the low angle, focal length, B&W, etc.
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Feb 23, 2010 05:52
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poopinmymouth: You use Elinchrom's quadra system yes? Does 400ws tend to take care of anything outdoors? The battery and heads are so small, they're very appealing. General thoughts? Speedlights and their inability to handle huge modifiers from a great distance away are about to get the axe from me. The photos clients are telling me caused them to choose me for a job are consistently the ones where I've employed such techniques. Whether it's the tools or the way the tools make me think, the speedlights are on their way out.
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Apr 8, 2010 17:54
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FakeHipster posted:The MoMA has been taking portraits of everyone who sits with Marina Abramovic at her retrospective. You can find all of them (probably thousands) here if interested. Awesome.
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Apr 17, 2010 23:25
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Gambl0r posted:Also I shot this group portrait of the stylists:
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Apr 30, 2010 23:19
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AtomicManiac posted:I think that's rule number 1 of portraits: Fill the Frame.
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Jun 26, 2010 01:20
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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. _DSC5885 by Bryan Cook, on Flickr
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Sep 8, 2010 15:26
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psylent posted:What was your lighting setup?
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Sep 8, 2010 16:04
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So that's pretty awesome.
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Oct 6, 2010 20:15
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I love your stuff, McMadCow.
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Nov 19, 2010 00:44
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psylent posted:Penpal - are the skin tones accurate on that shot?
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Jan 18, 2011 02:21
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Reichstag posted:'Bland' is not a style.
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Feb 15, 2011 06:36
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