Home Studio Portrait for C&C Please

dandaluzphotography · May 8, 2011

Hey Guys,

I just finished one of my first shots in my home studio that I just built. It's a friend of a friend and her son.

I wanted to see if there was anything grossly wrong with this shot.

Shot details:
1/200, f/9, ISO 100

Lighting:
First monolight slightly above and facing subjects with diffusing umbrella, slightly camera left, silver reflector at their feet, second monolight with snoot attached used for hair light camera left and behind subjects. Smaller light used for back light, camera right and behind subjects.

I did some minor retouching, mostly skin smoothing on mom, and a little sharpening.

Thanks,
Danny

dandaluzphotography · May 8, 2011

Nobody???

That means it's either perfect or too bad to comment on. I don't think it's either!

Danny

myvinyl333 · May 8, 2011

I am not at all an expert on lighting or the tools used. The image looks fine except for the cropping.

OrionsByte · May 8, 2011

I'm a bit confused by the crop... why such a wide landscape orientation instead of a portrait orientation?

As far as the lighting goes, I'm not entirely qualified to comment because I'm still learning all that myself, but I don't see anything horrid about it. However, with the blue background and blue shirts, you probably could use a rim light to get some separation. I can't really see the effect of the hair light.

dandaluzphotography · May 8, 2011

OrionsByte said:
I'm a bit confused by the crop... why such a wide landscape orientation instead of a portrait orientation?

As far as the lighting goes, I'm not entirely qualified to comment because I'm still learning all that myself, but I don't see anything horrid about it. However, with the blue background and blue shirts, you probably could use a rim light to get some separation. I can't really see the effect of the hair light.

The hairlight was on her right, top of the head. You can see it slightly. I guess because I know it's there. It probably wasn't bright enough. As far as the crop, I didn't even think about that. I guess it should be more square?

Thanks,
Danny

dandaluzphotography · May 8, 2011

How's this crop?

Thanks,
Danny

ababysean · May 8, 2011

What were your settings? It looks out of focus?

dandaluzphotography · May 8, 2011

Shot details:
1/200, f/9, ISO 100

I noticed the same thing when I uploaded to tinypic. On my Mac, it's pretty sharp.

manaheim · May 8, 2011

New crop is better, but dead-centering is generally not the best approach.

Kid looks like someone just threw a rabid squirrel in his direction. Kills the shot.

dandaluzphotography · May 8, 2011

manaheim said:
New crop is better, but dead-centering is generally not the best approach.

Kid looks like someone just threw a rabid squirrel in his direction. Kills the shot.

lol. He's a cute kid.

SabrinaO · May 9, 2011

The womans face is way too smooth. It just look fake. You still need to keep some detail. Also the crop... I don't think it came out like that sooc... Do you have the picture pre cropped? The crop is not normal and if she were to print I think the quality would suffer.

Raian-san · May 9, 2011

Blue shirt with blue background isn't very good combo IMO. Kid looks like he doesn't even want to be in the photo. Is there really only one photo off your studio shoot that you can post?

dandaluzphotography · May 9, 2011

SabrinaO said:
The womans face is way too smooth. It just look fake. You still need to keep some detail. Also the crop... I don't think it came out like that sooc... Do you have the picture pre cropped? The crop is not normal and if she were to print I think the quality would suffer.

Thanks for the feedback. You're absolutely right! I went way too far with the smoothing. Live and learn.

Danny

dandaluzphotography · May 9, 2011

Raian-san said:
Blue shirt with blue background isn't very good combo IMO. Kid looks like he doesn't even want to be in the photo. Is there really only one photo off your studio shoot that you can post?

You're right about the blue shirts. This was a last second thing that lasted about 10 minutes. I was practicing. This was the shot I like the best from the shot. I'm going to go through the others to see if there is anything else.

Thanks for the feedback.

Danny

manaheim · May 9, 2011

dandaluzphotography said:
manaheim said:

New crop is better, but dead-centering is generally not the best approach.

Kid looks like someone just threw a rabid squirrel in his direction. Kills the shot.

Click to expand...

lol. He's a cute kid.

I think you miss my point. Unless that's somehow a "special" look that the mom finds endearing, I would think you'd want another shot. The kid looks horrible. His facial expression is awful.