Crisp & Colorful?? Help!

[Severtson]

One of my favorite photogs of all time... I love the CRISP and colorful quality!! How do I accomplish this?? Any help is appreciated!!

christina g photography, coeur d'alene, id photographer, specializing in family, children, pregnancy, maternity, special occasion, photography, senior portraits, photo jewelry serving coeur d alene, post falls, hayden, idaho, spokane, wa

 

[Big Mike]

#1. Good understanding and use of light.
#2. Good understanding and execution of posing and composition.
#3. High quality gear.
#4. Good post processing techniques.

 

[Severtson]

I shoot Canon 20D, have a pretty decent knowledge of lighting

as far as post processing? exactly what kind of post-processing would we be looking at??

 

[bigtwinky]

I shoot Canon 20D, have a pretty decent knowledge of lighting

as far as post processing? exactly what kind of post-processing would we be looking at??

Lenses are more important than camera body.

As for post processing, things like sharpening come to mind, usually done in photoshop via the Unsharp Mask. Applying extra on eyes and other important elements (if need be).
Also looking at saturation / vibrance and maybe some contrast.

 

[Derrel]

I think the camera body is quite important. I went to the sire referenced above,and I saw a lot of small-format or APS-C digital stuff, with distracting, in-focus backgrounds. It was clear that that stuff was photographed with a small-format camera,and it looked a lot like the work of any number of younger, self-taught shooters. She apparently photographs a lot around a nearby, old, dilapidated shed that must be near her studio or residence. She has a couple of couches she drags outside. Her color is vivid and punchy.

I went through three galleries and saw lots of horizontal photos with large expanses of dead,empty space. Horizontals of high school seniors standing in alley ways and on streets in town. The last photo in the senior portrait gallery is a B&W photo. The left side of the photo is an out of focus, neutral foliage background. The right hand side of the frame shows a high school girl, the top of her head cropped off,and her body represented by about one inch of shoulders. A simply awful compositional choice...50% neutral background, 50% girl, posed badly. The same,exact case of horizontalitis shows itself throughout the site.

Her post processing is crisp and vibrant,and she's not afraid to overexpose background areas and let them go very yellow after highlight recovery,which makes me think she doesn't shoot fill flash and that she is a 'natural light' photographer. I'm not very fond of this type of composition, where the camera is simply pointed at a portrait subject presented in front of a mundane,meaningless environment which takes up 50 to 70% of the frame, and the ostensible subject of the picture is shown in an awkward, amputated crop, like the high school senior in front of brick wall in alley shot; that's not a half body portrait, its not a head and shoulder shot, it's simply a case of pointing the camera at the kid with it held horizontally, and taking what comes out of the camera. Same with the last photo in the senior portrait section--an absolutely meaningless horizontal shot that crops the subject awkwardly,and has absolutely no background value.

I understand why people like this "look", but a good percentage of her compositions would not make it past the first round at a PPA print judging contest for failure to meet basic aesthetic standards for professional photography. She's clearly self-taught and makes what a lot of serious shooters would call questionable framing decisions. I do understand that some people like the "look" of her work--bright, offhand, casual, unstudied.
I don't...she makes too many fundamental errors in evaluating how to pose and frame shots on simple things like half-body shots.

People can feel free to disagree with my opinion, but this is the way I feel about the growing number of self-taught,young people who hang out a shingle and become photographers without having studied and learned any of the unwritten (and written!) guidelines about people photography. The 50/50% background-subject horizontal framing of portrait shots for no apparent reason makes me cringe every time I see it.

 

[ann]

i went over about three portfolios, some things i thought interesting and fun; however, a lot of stuff was out of focus, i mean eyes for heavens sake.

also my neck is stiff from leaning in an attempt to straight up angles.

lots of saturation with pp.