Halloween Family Portraits..Off Camera Flash

vipgraphx · Nov 1, 2014

Good Morning TPF- I would like to share some Halloween Family portraits I took yesterday evening. These are done using Off camera flash with two light sources. I would love some feedback on these.

We had a lot of fun last night and hope you enjoy

First Set Portrait cropped in Vs Portrait Square, please give CC on What crop looks better along with another info you see that could help me in the future.
1)

family portrait small by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

2)

family portrait suare small by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

Next are two slightly different portraits of the family without me (Freddy Krueger)

3)

family 2 by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

4)

family4 by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

Next is My wife ( She scared many kids and teenagers last night walking up to cars and houses)
5)

Brandi Zipper Face by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

Next up is My oldest son. He was a sike ward -zombie patient.
6)

Isaiah Zombie by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

Last is my youngest son ( He is 8 and does not really like to wear make up so went for the skeleton theme with his skeleton doggie he took around with him)
7)

Zion Skeleton by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

tirediron · Nov 1, 2014

Well done; looks like a lot of effort went into those!

Gary A. · Nov 1, 2014

A lot of effort. Good stuff.

Derrel · Nov 1, 2014

Awesome costumes! The way the house and yard have been decorated also really helps the creepy factor. The witch's shadow in #3 really is a nice detail! This is one situation where the low main light and the "horror lighting" shadows it creates works pretty well. If there's anything to nit-pick it might be the way the light coming from the side falls off a bit from left to right, allowing the right hand side people to get a bit too dark in a couple frames. However, this is a scenario where lighting that's a little weird is not going to be a deal-breaker.

On the family shot, I think the stronger one is the wider view, with the skeleton doggie at the bottom.

vipgraphx · Nov 1, 2014

Thanks! THats kinda what I thought . One reason I cropped in was that I was not to happy with my sons shoe choice ( skeleton guy). I thought the shoes did not flow well with the rest of the costume.

I am waiting on some light stands. Hopefully this will help me to balance the lighting more. I would have also like to have had either a light behind them or one facing down. My hat was customized and had tears and burn wholes I would have liked to have shown. I suppose I could always use the raw file and over expose it and mask in some detail.hhhmmm yeah maybe I will do that.

I had about 5 min to set up lights make adjustments and fire away before we had to leave. We were running behind from putting the make up on. I had my first shot at using latex to create these looks. So time went fast.

However the more I work on understanding lighting and placement I think I will be able to do a better job for other shoots. In this case this was pretty much what I was looking for givin the theme.

vipgraphx · Nov 1, 2014

I was thinking about something and wanted to ask if a flash filter would have been good to use here. Like those color filters the nikon flashes come with. Thoughts?