Informal Portrait, Good Morning Miss Emily

PixelRabbit · May 13, 2013

I took a few shots of Miss Emily bright and early this morning as we chatted over coffee. She had just woken up and said good morning to her kitty, Paws (she wandered back home and he followed lol), so I notice a stray hair or two now that can be removed from her sweater.

This was impromptu and I am starting to think I should walk around with a reflector in my pocket for these moments since one would have helped with such strong light coming over her shoulder but at the same time I like the bit of softness that are in these. The shot was ok in colour but the colours of her sweatshirt really drew a lot of attention so I chose black and white to minimize what she is wearing and maximize focus on her face.

I'm of course partial to these her being mine and all

so I would love to hear your thoughts, thanks for taking a look!

I wish I got a bit more of her knee in this one.

jedirunner · May 13, 2013

They both are nice. I personally prefer #2. I'm not smart enough to say why. I can guess though:
1- I like the darker color set
2- I like her hair more in front
3- I like her face towards the camera rather than leaning away from it
4- I like the head tilt there

I think you're right on #1. If there were more of her knee -- something indicating the pose and why she seemed to be leaning away a bit -- it would help.

Kevin

ronlane · May 13, 2013

Hey Pixel, you should shoot more of those "wild animals"

. Nice work.

Derrel · May 13, 2013

I think the second picture is more flattering to her. I know whatcha' mean about bright shirts drawing too much attention. The B&W conversions on these are pretty heavy with gray tones. I do not think either B&W conversion effort particularly "sings", but this is fairly tough lighting to work with, and it looks like in #1 there might be some highlights lost. Yeah...reflector in pocket...that was a song by The Pretenders, right??? I know what you mean--this is STRONG backlighting. Very strong. Without some kind of fill-in, there's going to almost guaranteed, be some eclipsing of the camera's dynamic range, and "something" is going to end up rendering kinda funny in post.

I don't know what the best way is to go with this kind of scenario...I've tried using one, 400 Watt-second flash head aimed at a corner, and that works, but it still limits the top shutter speed to whatever X-synch speed is. Reflector fill works, if you have one. Tiffen's Black Net Diffuser filter is another option, and adds a neat look when shooting into really,really strong backlighting like this.

PixelRabbit · May 14, 2013

Thanks Kevin, Ron and Derrel

Kevin, I prefer the second a bit also, I think a stronger composition in the first to indicate how she is sitting would have helped it but alas I did not shoot wide enough, this is not new lol.

Derrel, no, not the Pretenders it was the Monks

lol
It was definitely a lesser of two evils with the B&W conversion, her sweatshirt was purple with yellow and black lettering that says "You mad bro?" in honour of her recent breakup lol

At the time the reflector came to mind but it was on the other side of the house an I wasn't going to get it and lose the "moment" we were enjoying... and I still had coffee left

lol The flash I considered when editing and the Black Net Diffuser is a new one to me! I looked it up and it made me go hmmmm... thanks for mentioning it!