Meagan and family Holiday Shot

[Buckster]

A couple of folks I work with and their kids.

 

[camz]

LOL the baby's expression!

I like it, you got some fall off on the father though.

 

[Buckster]

LOL the baby's expression!

I like it, you got some fall off on the father though.

Thanks! Yeah, I'll have to clean that up better before I go to print.

 

[camz]

Sure thing.

Buck now that I know you're going to print, I also recommend sharpening or cleaning up the edges. I'm assuming this was from a green screen or white screen backdrop and there as some colour cast bleed on their perimeters. It might be significant depending on how big you're printing. If' its xmas card type size it might fly.

Edit: What I mean by the edges, the blur over spills into some of the perimeter of your subjects.

 

[Buckster]

Will do. This is one of half a dozen different backgrounds that I just worked up in a few minutes to give them a choice. This one is my favorite of the bunch. When they choose which one they want for the package, I'll spend some time on it and do it up right. :thumbup:

 

[Derrel]

Pretty good job getting the boys to look nice, well-mannered, clean, neatly,dressed, polite,involved, on-board, and sweet...there's usually two or three of those qualities that a mother or grandmother can fault on a shot with two boys in that age group! it's amazing what the moms and dad's will say when looking at family pics like this...getting two REAL SMILES on boys 9 and 7 years old sometimes seems like a miracle. Pafents and grandparents love that...they often don't even care what the grown-ups look like. The baby's expression is priceless. Mom and dad look quite presentable too, but as a former family portrait shooter, I can appreciate what you've done here.

 

[Buckster]

Thanks Derrel!

Yeah, you know it man. It's like herding cats to get them all off the "say cheese" forced-smile bandwagon, but especially youngsters.

I just keep up the banter and jokes and laughing and smiling till they loosen up enough to get on board with me. What works pretty well for me is to take them through a series of "okay, now make this face", then I make a face and try to look plenty goofy and then say, "now you! WOO HOO!!" SNAP! I just keep that up till they're having a good time with it without any more coaching from me. It helps that I've got a natural goofball streak running through me! LOL!

I love the baby's expression! LOL! I had no idea I had it either until I went through the series after they'd left. I couldn't get that kid to look at me no matter what I tried! As I was going through the series to narrow it down to the shot to use, that expression just jumped out and the search was over.

 

[Big Mike]

Amen...getting multiple kids to cooperate and give you a nice face can be so aggravating. You can stand on your head and spit wooden nickles, but one of them will always be looking at mom or dad.

I have way too much practice switching eyes, faces or heads on family portraits.

 

[slc33]

A couple of folks I work with and their kids.

What did you shoot this photo with? Looks good

 

[Buckster]

A couple of folks I work with and their kids.

What did you shoot this photo with? Looks good

Thank you kindly.

• Canon 5DMKII wearing a Canon 85mm f/1.8
• ISO 400, 1/200th, f/10
• Key to camera left: Two 42" reflector umbrellas in clamshell arrangement with 200 w/s studio strobes
• Fill on camera right: 2 gold reflectors halfway between key and subjects, catching the key and with a YN565 at low power at the key location pointed straight at them, giving them a little more push
• Hair: two 24" softboxes on booms overhead and slightly behind subjects, powered by 580EXIIs.
• Black background 10' behind subjects, intended for a composite, so not lit.
• Lights were sync'd with Radio Poppers

 

[Robin Usagani]

Sorry buckster.. not a fan. Nothing to do with your photo taking skill. You are one of the best here when it comes to studio lighting. I am just not a fan of the mural. Too cheesy IMO.

 

[jake337]

The only thing I'm not sure about is the Dad's head tiltin towards the high shoulder. But then I try to imagine the exposure with his head tilted the other way and I not sure how it would look. I think any feminine attributes this gives off are lost because of how his arms/hands incompass his entire family, bringing back the masculinity.

Sorry to nitpick, just been trying to read up on portraiture posing alot lately, so take it with half a grain of salt!

 

[Buckster]

Sorry buckster.. not a fan. Nothing to do with your photo taking skill. You are one of the best here when it comes to studio lighting. I am just not a fan of the mural. Too cheesy IMO.

Thank you kindly for the warm words on my work in general, and for your thoughts on this.

The way I look at it is: The client wants what the client wants. I won't be looking at it for the next 20+ years, so I'm pretty pragmatic about just delivering what they want.

Not making excuses here, but my studio doesn't have any Christmas decorations. I don't put up a tree or even own a string of Christmas lights. I have very little in the way of props at all, actually. I just don't do enough of this kind of portrait work to justify having them.

A week before the shoot, I explained that in order to get them a Christmas theme as they wanted, I'd be shooting on a plain background and then dropping in a digital background after the fact. Because she's blonde and they're all very light skinned and light colored hair, I decided ahead of time to shoot them against black, and explained that reasoning to her. As such, I told her to dress them in coordinated colors that were traditional Christmas colors of red or green, and not to wear black. The kids' sleeves broke that, but they were manageable.

After the shoot, I quickly dropped in several different Christmas themed backgrounds I have for that purpose, ranging from this to very simple, even subtle themes, some photo-realistic, some illustrative like the one above, and let them choose. As I expected, this is the one they wanted. Actually, they went wild over it:

OMG Buck they turned out so good! We like Meagan_0199_1.jpg. I really appericate it. I am excited to see the pictures of the kids. Thank you thank you thank you!!!
Meagan

In the end, it's all the same to me what they hang on their walls, put in the photo albums, send to the grandparents, etc., as long as we all have fun with it and I get paid. :thumbup:

 

[Kerbouchard]

Well, seems like you've covered the background, but I have a few questions about the posing.

Why square to the camera for mom and dad? Looks like Mom is hunched over a bit, Dad's right arm look akward and both Mom and Dad have double chins. What was your camera height?

I'm thinking I would have had Mom 'sit tall' and had dad bring his right foot back a bit and place most of his weight on his rear foot. Maybe even have used a posing stool for Dad, too, since he is so much taller.

I don't know, for me, the posing just seems a bit akward for the parents. I think maybe you were concentrating on the kids(which you did a great job on), and lost track of the parents.

 

[Buckster]

The only thing I'm not sure about is the Dad's head tiltin towards the high shoulder. But then I try to imagine the exposure with his head tilted the other way and I not sure how it would look. I think any feminine attributes this gives off are lost because of how his arms/hands incompass his entire family, bringing back the masculinity.

Sorry to nitpick, just been trying to read up on portraiture posing alot lately, so take it with half a grain of salt!

No worries! Nitpick away! I do it to myself all the time when looking at my final finished products. It's all good. That's how we learn and grow in our abilities.

There's not a photo I've ever produced that I don't look at and wish I'd done something a little different, gotten a little more light or a little more shadow here or there, managed the pose a little better, coordinated the color or background or composition as a whole better, managed DOF better, etc. I see little things others will probably never ever notice, and I think, "DOH!"

In the end, I just accept that I'm not perfect, the world's not perfect, and maybe the little imperfections make it all just a little more natural, a little more human, a little more believable. In this case, maybe it says something about who he is, personality-wise, something the family knows instinctively and will connect with when they look at it.