Drew- Natural Light Portraits

[DanOstergren]

I bought a new skateboard and a nice coat the other day, so of course I had to photograph them with a model. The model isn't very experienced with posing, and to be honest I wasn't feeling super motivated to pose him much so unfortunately as a result there was little variety and nothing really interesting with posing, but hey at least he's nice to look at.

Gear List:
Canon 5D Classic (MKI)
Canon EF 85mm f/1.8
White foam board from Walmart as a reflector

And then there's this one. I doesn't really match with the others in my opinion, but I love the cinematic lighting I was able to capture. No, we did not shoot on any railroad tracks at any point, and always kept at a safe distance from them.

 

[Gary A.]

I like the two color head and shoulders images. The shot with the skateboard looks natural, relaxed with good lighting. The others all look forced and uncomfortable.

 

[DanOstergren]

I like the two color head and shoulders images. The shot with the skateboard looks natural, relaxed with good lighting. The others all look forced and uncomfortable.

It wasn't easy to get natural expressions out of him. He's good looking and has some experience modeling, but sometimes getting that natural or comfortable look from an inexperienced model can be very challenging, especially when the model is trying to look good but doesn't quite know how.

 

[Gary A.]

I like the two color head and shoulders images. The shot with the skateboard looks natural, relaxed with good lighting. The others all look forced and uncomfortable.

It wasn't easy to get natural expressions out of him. He's good looking and has some experience modeling, but sometimes getting that natural or comfortable look from an inexperienced model can be very challenging, especially when the model is trying to look good but doesn't quite know how.

LOL ... yeah people tend to get squirrely when a camera is pointed at them.

 

[Frankinfuji]

The first one looks great to me. Like the classic skateboard too!

 

[Gary A.]

How's the new board.

 

[chuasam]

I was sooooo close to getting an MA-1 jacket after reading Pattern Recognition.
These days, I feel like it's too common with teenage girls *LOL*

 

[GWWhite]

#1 is definitely my favorite!

 

[DanOstergren]

The first one looks great to me. Like the classic skateboard too!

Thank you. The board has to look good or I won't ride it lol

 

[DanOstergren]

How's the new board.

It's great! Landyachtz makes a great board with a smooth ride, and they come with Bear Trucks which are really nice too. I've been driving a lot less around the city since getting it and using it for transportation instead.

 

[DanOstergren]

Also wanted to share a before/after of one of the shots. 90% of the skin editing is done by dodging, the rest using the spot healing brush and a hue/saturation adjustment layer with a mask to selectively reduce he saturation in areas with over saturated reds. I recorded this edit and will share it on TPF once I finish editing the video. Total time was about 1.5 hours. I purposely kept this one as close to how the camera captured it, with only minor changes.

 

[smoke665]

Overall number one with the skateboard is great, maybe a little more light into the shadows on the right side of the face. Number 2 the head shot is also a winner, because of the eyes!!!!

 

[mmaria]

I like the two color head and shoulders images. The shot with the skateboard looks natural, relaxed with good lighting. The others all look forced and uncomfortable.

It wasn't easy to get natural expressions out of him. He's good looking and has some experience modeling, but sometimes getting that natural or comfortable look from an inexperienced model can be very challenging, especially when the model is trying to look good but doesn't quite know how.

When I work with experienced models, I feel like I'm doing nothing... it's much much much easier

 

[mmaria]

Also wanted to share a before/after of one of the shots. 90% of the skin editing is done by dodging, the rest using the spot healing brush and a hue/saturation adjustment layer with a mask to selectively reduce he saturation in areas with over saturated reds. I recorded this edit and will share it on TPF once I finish editing the video. Total time was about 1.5 hours.

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[DanOstergren]

Also wanted to share a before/after of one of the shots. 90% of the skin editing is done by dodging, the rest using the spot healing brush and a hue/saturation adjustment layer with a mask to selectively reduce he saturation in areas with over saturated reds. I recorded this edit and will share it on TPF once I finish editing the video. Total time was about 1.5 hours.

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lol. The only issue is that Quicktime does seem to record accurate color tones, so the video is different looking from what the finished photo looks like. It's free though, and still shows what the editing does as it's being done. I just started a trial of Camtasia though, which supposedly will capture a much more accurate depiction of my screen. I'll try recording some more videos using that software instead this week to see if it looks any better. I'll be posting the videos here for anyone to use, but eventually I want to try selling some tutorials and I'm hoping to get lot's of feedback on them from TPF before I actually get to that point.