Help me Salvage these Portraits!!

[311Photo]

Since you have already committed to more families in the immediate future and there is really so much still to learn, I think you would be better served to find a location that is not quite so challenging. That background is going to give you trouble if you are shooting on a sunny day. Look for somewhere that you can be in full but open shade.

Will do!

 

[311Photo]

Don't shoot toward the sun to eliminate flare. Learn to use fill flash to help with the exposures.

Don't take on "Shoots" for others until you can produce professional results under any conditions. It is a disservice to them and gives you a bad reputation.

That last shot will likely be difficult to salvage. It is already noisy and bringing up the foreground will just make that worse.

Spot meter your subjects to expose them properly.
But then the background will be way over exposed.

To shoot heavily backlit subjects you have to add light from in front to balance the 2 extremes of exposure.
Ideally the subjects would be a little brighter than the background. A visual art truism is that "Light advances, dark recedes".
Using flash gives you more control than using a reflector or reflectors.

Using flash we control the flash exposure with the flash unit power setting and the lens aperture, while controlling the ambient light exposure with the shutter speed. Doing that is known as dragging the shutter.

If the background isn't really bright, to keep enough shutter speed you may need to use Canon's High Speed Sync (HSS) but would need flash units and a Canon DSLR that are HSS capable.

Basically you have the cart in front of the horse in that you don't yet have sufficient technical knowledge and skill to do what you're trying to do.

Lot of great, free, on-the-nose advice there. Some of these look tricky to salvage friom a technical standpoint, but luckily, the subjects in family photos tend to evaluate the shots NOT on tchnical strength, but on expression of loved ones, so even technically-challenged shots are often met with acceptance, especially if loed ones look even halfway nice, friendly, or have good emotion. "Emotion" might be a half-smile from a stern or dout person, or a big laugh from an normally quiet person, etc..

Don't shoot toward the sun to eliminate flare. Learn to use fill flash to help with the exposures.

Don't take on "Shoots" for others until you can produce professional results under any conditions. It is a disservice to them and gives you a bad reputation.

That last shot will likely be difficult to salvage. It is already noisy and bringing up the foreground will just make that worse.

Spot meter your subjects to expose them properly.
But then the background will be way over exposed.

To shoot heavily backlit subjects you have to add light from in front to balance the 2 extremes of exposure.
Ideally the subjects would be a little brighter than the background. A visual art truism is that "Light advances, dark recedes".
Using flash gives you more control than using a reflector or reflectors.

Using flash we control the flash exposure with the flash unit power setting and the lens aperture, while controlling the ambient light exposure with the shutter speed. Doing that is known as dragging the shutter.

If the background isn't really bright, to keep enough shutter speed you may need to use Canon's High Speed Sync (HSS) but would need flash units and a Canon DSLR that are HSS capable.

Basically you have the cart in front of the horse in that you don't yet have sufficient technical knowledge and skill to do what you're trying to do.

Lot of great, free, on-the-nose advice there. Some of these look tricky to salvage friom a technical standpoint, but luckily, the subjects in family photos tend to evaluate the shots NOT on tchnical strength, but on expression of loved ones, so even technically-challenged shots are often met with acceptance, especially if loed ones look even halfway nice, friendly, or have good emotion. "Emotion" might be a half-smile from a stern or dout person, or a big laugh from an normally quiet person, etc..

You're absolutely right.
The people who have "booked" with me, have made it clear that they had not had photos taken in a long time, if ever, could not afford regularly-priced photographers and otherwise would not be getting photos this year, etc. I don't feel like they're looking for quite the technical composition that most on this site are capable of nor do they have the eye that even I, as inexperienced as I am, have. Not that I don't want to get there and still provide them with quality well beyond their expectations. And make the appropriate amends if I cannot do that. But I have not "tricked" anyone into a session with me. All who have booked have viewed my work that I have available on my Facebook page and have exhibited a tremendous amount of gratefulness. I'm aware I'm a bit beyond my skill set here, but I have appreciative neighbors and I'm able to get experience, so it's not the disservice that people here are alluding to. And if anyone is just super unhappy and had Christmas card photos in mind, there is still of time to get photos for Christmas cards.
Anyway, I don't intend to get on a rant or defend myself. I try to take criticism with thick skin and get the most out of it, and I'm appreciative of everyone who takes the time to comment. Especially those who offer truly informative and useful information.

 

[SquarePeg]

Are the photos you posted for salvaging representative of your usual work or did you only post the ones that you needed help saving? Please take this in the kind way that it's intended - I don't think any of those should be something you would charge someone for - especially a friend or a neighbor.

 

[311Photo]

Are the photos you posted for salvaging representative of your usual work or did you only post the ones that you needed help saving? Please take this in the kind way that it's intended - I don't think any of those should be something you would charge someone for - especially a friend or a neighbor.

I absolutely agree with you. Those are the worst shots out of the ones I took. I was just hoping they could be salvaged. Those are not representative of my usual work. I intentionally posted the worst ones for two reasons: 1) to illustrate the issue I needed correcting very clearly and 2) wanting to make overall improvements on my worst shots so that even my worst are not so bad.

 

[311Photo]

These are some others I took the same day. As I said, I'm sure by the standards of those on this forum, these are not good either. But I think $25 is reasonable for 15 +/- these types of shots. Of course, I'm willing to also accept critiques on these and any feedback on whether or not that is indeed reasonable.
I'm most disappointed by the fact that the shots that were "Christmas-themed" did not turn out as I'd like and I'm not sure if they can be salvaged. If that's the case, even with several of these types of photos, I still would not charge, as it was set up to be a Christmas mini.

 

[Derrel]

Look for good lighting conditions. Think about how much light hits the eyes, but does not cause squinting. Try for good expressions. Your work will get better if you keep trying to refine your craft. Get some books from the library--even older books, from the pre-digital era. The soft skills, the working with people, posing, expression, direction of the people...all of that stuff will trump the hard skills of f/stop and shutter and focus. Work on the soft skills of photographing families. Within a few months, you will be better.

 

[311Photo]

Look for good lighting conditions. Think about how much light hits the eyes, but does not cause squinting. Try for good expressions. Your work will get better if you keep trying to refine your craft. Get some books from the library--even older books, from the pre-digital era. The soft skills, the working with people, posing, expression, direction of the people...all of that stuff will trump the hard skills of f/stop and shutter and focus. Work on the soft skills of photographing families. Within a few months, you will be better.

Thank you so much, Derrel! I absolutely will take your advice. I know it takes time, hard work, and dedication.
It's nice to finally get an encouraging comment on here!!

 

[chuasam]

oh dear...I hope you didn't charge very much. The framing is not ideal, the exposure is off and the background is...not pretty

 

[photo1x1.com]

Hi, people have already commented on many aspects of your first images and I felt they are spot on. The second images look way better, I´ve also checked your facebook page.
Anyway, here´s my 2c:

1. Did you shoot those images in RAW? You can definitely not save those jpg files.
   
2. There is nothing wrong with sunflare these days, but your sun is too high up to create a really nice backlight shot. You have to wait until it is very low. Then you use spot metering at the peoples face as others have suggested, and find something that will bounce your light - doesn´t have to be a reflector, in the example below I had a wall and the rather bright tiles of the floor. I had a reflector with me, but didn´t even have to use it.
   
   
   
   
3. Most of your images are shot with a rather wide focal length (21mm), while portraits are usually shot at much longer focal lengths, starting at 50mm Minimum (which is a rather modern length, but 85mm-135mm being the standard for portraits).
   Longer focal length would blur the background more and that will reduce the distracting effect. However, keep in mind that the reduced depth of field (the area of focus seen from front to back) will make it more difficult for group portraits to have people in the foreground and in the background sharp, like in your first image. Aligning people in three layers like that for portraits with less than 15 or so people is rather risky, even though it is more natural and creative.
   
4. Your images have a lot of what is called chromatic aberration - you can usually easily fix that in lightroom.
5. Try to get a little more creative with your christmas decoration. For me it rather distracts than adds to the image. It is difficult to do that in this environment. You could go further into the woods in the background though to have a more christmassy feeling
   
6. The little girl image on your facebook page needs a little cropping btw. Her left hand (from her point of view) is cropped, so you´ better crop it much closer on the other side too.
7. I wouldn´t have had the young man standing in the first image - he looks like a superhuman.

 

[311Photo]

Hi, people have already commented on many aspects of your first images and I felt they are spot on. The second images look way better, I´ve also checked your facebook page.
Anyway, here´s my 2c:

1. Did you shoot those images in RAW? You can definitely not save those jpg files.
   
2. There is nothing wrong with sunflare these days, but your sun is too high up to create a really nice backlight shot. You have to wait until it is very low. Then you use spot metering at the peoples face as others have suggested, and find something that will bounce your light - doesn´t have to be a reflector, in the example below I had a wall and the rather bright tiles of the floor. I had a reflector with me, but didn´t even have to use it.
   View attachment 130720
   
3. Most of your images are shot with a rather wide focal length (21mm), while portraits are usually shot at much longer focal lengths, starting at 50mm Minimum (which is a rather modern length, but 85mm-135mm being the standard for portraits).
   Longer focal length would blur the background more and that will reduce the distracting effect. However, keep in mind that the reduced depth of field (the area of focus seen from front to back) will make it more difficult for group portraits to have people in the foreground and in the background sharp, like in your first image. Aligning people in three layers like that for portraits with less than 15 or so people is rather risky, even though it is more natural and creative.
   
4. Your images have a lot of what is called chromatic aberration - you can usually easily fix that in lightroom.
5. Try to get a little more creative with your christmas decoration. For me it rather distracts than adds to the image. It is difficult to do that in this environment. You could go further into the woods in the background though to have a more christmassy feeling
   
6. The little girl image on your facebook page needs a little cropping btw. Her left hand (from her point of view) is cropped, so you´ better crop it much closer on the other side too.
7. I wouldn´t have had the young man standing in the first image - he looks like a superhuman.

This is all tremendously helpful. Thank you! I appreciate your taking the time to look at the other images and provide such detailed feedback.

The images were shot in RAW but I honestly don't know what to do with them beyond that, if that makes sense. I learned from another post here to shoot in RAW but I haven't entirely figured out why exactly. How should I save if shooting in RAW?

The photo you posted is beautiful. I have also read that sun flare is a desired look but not in the way I captured it. I did have a white poster board for a makeshift reflector, but it didn't do anything at all (obviously). I'm sure I was not using it properly. High wind and shooting by myself made it a little difficult. I need to break down and get a reflector. Thank you for posting a shot so similar to what I was trying to achieve.

On the focal length that you mentioned, is this something that can be achieved in the 13-55mm lens I have, or will I need a new lens for this?

And superhuman was not what I was going for! Posing and angles is (obviously) something I'm very much still learning (well, along with everything else). But I did notice that once I began post-production. Live and learn. I actually learned a lot about posing just from looking at the photos I took.

This is super helpful. Again, thank you so much for your time. I come here to get feedback and learn from people like yourself.
I'm going to further research all of this, and I hope you can see marked improvement and evidence of my taking your advice in the next set.

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

 

[photo1x1.com]

Hi, people have already commented on many aspects of your first images and I felt they are spot on. The second images look way better, I´ve also checked your facebook page.
Anyway, here´s my 2c:

1. Did you shoot those images in RAW? You can definitely not save those jpg files.
   
2. There is nothing wrong with sunflare these days, but your sun is too high up to create a really nice backlight shot. You have to wait until it is very low. Then you use spot metering at the peoples face as others have suggested, and find something that will bounce your light - doesn´t have to be a reflector, in the example below I had a wall and the rather bright tiles of the floor. I had a reflector with me, but didn´t even have to use it.
   View attachment 130720
   
3. Most of your images are shot with a rather wide focal length (21mm), while portraits are usually shot at much longer focal lengths, starting at 50mm Minimum (which is a rather modern length, but 85mm-135mm being the standard for portraits).
   Longer focal length would blur the background more and that will reduce the distracting effect. However, keep in mind that the reduced depth of field (the area of focus seen from front to back) will make it more difficult for group portraits to have people in the foreground and in the background sharp, like in your first image. Aligning people in three layers like that for portraits with less than 15 or so people is rather risky, even though it is more natural and creative.
   
4. Your images have a lot of what is called chromatic aberration - you can usually easily fix that in lightroom.
5. Try to get a little more creative with your christmas decoration. For me it rather distracts than adds to the image. It is difficult to do that in this environment. You could go further into the woods in the background though to have a more christmassy feeling
   
6. The little girl image on your facebook page needs a little cropping btw. Her left hand (from her point of view) is cropped, so you´ better crop it much closer on the other side too.
7. I wouldn´t have had the young man standing in the first image - he looks like a superhuman.

This is all tremendously helpful. Thank you! I appreciate your taking the time to look at the other images and provide such detailed feedback.

The images were shot in RAW but I honestly don't know what to do with them beyond that, if that makes sense. I learned from another post here to shoot in RAW but I haven't entirely figured out why exactly. How should I save if shooting in RAW?

The photo you posted is beautiful. I have also read that sun flare is a desired look but not in the way I captured it. I did have a white poster board for a makeshift reflector, but it didn't do anything at all (obviously). I'm sure I was not using it properly. High wind and shooting by myself made it a little difficult. I need to break down and get a reflector. Thank you for posting a shot so similar to what I was trying to achieve.

On the focal length that you mentioned, is this something that can be achieved in the 13-55mm lens I have, or will I need a new lens for this?

And superhuman was not what I was going for! Posing and angles is (obviously) something I'm very much still learning (well, along with everything else). But I did notice that once I began post-production. Live and learn. I actually learned a lot about posing just from looking at the photos I took.

This is super helpful. Again, thank you so much for your time. I come here to get feedback and learn from people like yourself.
I'm going to further research all of this, and I hope you can see marked improvement and evidence of my taking your advice in the next set.

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

Glad I could help.
when shooting in RAW you need to use a software to make adjustments - like lighten shadows, reduce highlights, adjust saturation, white balance, etc. etc. For example with lightroom you have a lot of options to even make local adjustments like lowering the brightness of the background only, etc. etc. A RAW file has so much more information that you can work on the file, without introducing too much noise or damage it otherwise.
You probably didn´t know that if you open a jpg, edit it, and save it again, you continuously add compression artifakts and the file gets worse and worse and worse. There are many tutorials out there on lightroom, or on other software. Just walk your way through - it is absolutely worth the time you invest into it.
When I use sunflare as in the image posted, I usually don´ shoot before the sun is maximum 1 hour before sunset or 1 hour after sunrise (the image above was sunrise btw.). It is much darker then and you can much more easily fill the shadows.
A reflector isn´t necessarily better than a white poster board. And I bet it did brighten up your shots. Do a comparison with and without next time - bring it as close to the people as possible without letting it enter the frame. Also it usually has to be on the opposite side of your light source. Comparison and trial and error are two of the most important factors of learning photography. I´d try it out with friends first though .
Regarding the focal length: use 55mm to begin with, and the largest aperture (I guess that´s 5.6) you can select with your lens. Compare that with another shot, taken at around 21mm - just as you did before and see the difference. There is always and excuse for getting new lenses but first of all work with what you have to understand what you would like to improve. Otherwise you wouldn´t know what lens you really want.

 

[311Photo]

Try to get a little more creative with your christmas decoration. For me it rather distracts than adds to the image. It is difficult to do that in this environment. You could go further into the woods in the background though to have a more christmassy feeling

Are the decorations that I have even necessary. I thought about, for next time, just using a blanket and the banner (not pictured) that says "Merry Christmas" that I have. I agree that the decor I have is more distracting than anything. Can you do a "Christmas session" with no Christmas "stuff"?? Not having all of that laid out would make me much more flexible to move around as the sun moves and play with different areas.

I actual did take several "test" shots before anyone came out and had my camera settings correct (I thought), but the addition of people and the constant movement of the sun made it so that that just did not work out.

 

[chuasam]

Picture Perfect Lighting: An Innovative Lighting System for Photographing People: Roberto Valenzuela: 9781937538750: Amazon.com: Books this would be a great book to get and study

 

[311Photo]

Picture Perfect Lighting: An Innovative Lighting System for Photographing People: Roberto Valenzuela: 9781937538750: Amazon.com: Books this would be a great book to get and study

Thank you, I appreciate that!

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

 

[Designer]

I understand. I have committed to several other families at this time, and if I end up doing every one of those sessions in essence for free, I would be fine with that, calling it experience under my belt.
Aside from that, what do you suggest to increase my technical knowledge and skill?

Read a lot. Practice what you've read. Look at examples of good photography. Learn the basics at the very least.

There are many would-be professional photographers who don't have as many subjects waiting for portraiture as you've got. While some start-ups may consider that a blessing, what you're doing is essentially wasting people's time, and establishing a reputation for your being a not-very-good photographer.

Yes, I know you've told them, and they are not expecting professional results, but frankly, the examples you posted are so bad that I would not be at all surprised if none of your present families will come back. If they do come back, you'd better be able to do much better.