Michael- Natural Light Portrait

DanOstergren · Feb 14, 2016

Once again I've been going through old shoots looking for anything I may have overlooked or forgotten to retouch. The weather has been very rainy lately, so all I can do is edit old photos while I have the time. Particularly I'm trying to put together a collection of shots from the many photo shoots I've done with bearded models, and I came across this shot of my friend Michael from 2013. For some reason I didn't think it was worthy to edit back then, but a few years later I find that I like it a lot more.

Natural light (no reflector)
5D MKI
135mm @f/2.8
1/800th sec
ISO 250

jaomul · Feb 14, 2016

Its a nice shot but I do find the shadows on the upper left of his head (as you look at him) and the oof top left of the photo lets it down a little

FITBMX · Feb 14, 2016

it is a nice shot!

DanOstergren · Feb 15, 2016

jaomul said:
Its a nice shot but I do find the shadows on the upper left of his head (as you look at him) and the oof top left of the photo lets it down a little

Thank you. Yeah, I kind of wish those out of focus leaves weren't there. I don't quite trust my cloning abilities to try and remove them, but I could give it a try. The shadows on his face are an aspect of the photo that I really like personally.

DanOstergren · Feb 15, 2016

FITBMX said:
it is a nice shot!

Thank you.

mmaria · Feb 15, 2016

wish there is less noise and that the right eye is just a bit more in focus but his expression and your retouching skills make it all good

DanOstergren · Feb 15, 2016

mmaria said:
wish there is less noise and that the right eye is just a bit more in focus but his expression and your retouching skills make it all good

Thank you. I did a version without grain and one with, and found that I liked it more with the noise. I felt the image had a nostalgic feeling to it and thought some grain might compliment it.