Outdoor Portrait - Feedback Requested

[311Photo]

Hi, friends.
I'm a newbie to portraiture and would love the feedback of these shots I took Sunday. I have several more sessions in the same area scheduled, so any tips on camera setting adjustments, location adjustments, or further post-processing would be much appreciated!! These were all edited in Lightroom CC and shot on a Canon EOS Rebel T2i.

 

[Derrel]

Hi, friends.
I'm a newbie to portraiture and would love the feedback of these shots I took Sunday. I have several more sessions in the same area scheduled, so any tips on camera setting adjustments, location adjustments, or further post-processing would be much appreciated!! These were all edited in Lightroom CC and shot on a Canon EOS Rebel T2i.

I think you should always be aware of avoiding backlighting that leads to orange-lighted ears on people, as the older boy is suffering from. Moving the person as far as is needed to avoid a lit-up, hot, orange ear is critical; ince you see this, or have a client comment on it, you'll proibably not be anble to ever un-see it. (experience talking here RE this issue)

The shot of the parents has the best lighting, but the others suffer from rather dark eye sockets, and those ortraits would have been muchly improved by using a large, white reflector, to both create eye catchlights, and to just get more light on the people, on the shade side.

There is always a balancing act between showing a sunny, autumnal backdrop, and in how much light is on the face in this type of against-the-light shooting.

A big suggestion would be to seek out the EDGES, the very,very edges, of the shadow cast by a large tree; there will be a band of three to six feet where the light is more what is called "open shade", such as we see in the beginning shot of the parents; a place where the light side behind them is bright, but the against-the-light side is also fairly bright. This same "band" of sweet light can often be found where bright sky-light meets shade, or where bright sun-light meets shade.

 

[311Photo]

Hi, friends.
I'm a newbie to portraiture and would love the feedback of these shots I took Sunday. I have several more sessions in the same area scheduled, so any tips on camera setting adjustments, location adjustments, or further post-processing would be much appreciated!! These were all edited in Lightroom CC and shot on a Canon EOS Rebel T2i.

I think you should always be aware of avoiding backlighting that leads to orange-lighted ears on people, as the older boy is suffering from. Moving the person as far as is needed to avoid a lit-up, hot, orange ear is critical; ince you see this, or have a client comment on it, you'll proibably not be anble to ever un-see it. (experience talking here RE this issue)

Thje shot of the parents has the best lighting, but the others suffer from rather dark eye sockets, and their portraits would have been muchly improved by using a large, white reflector, yto both create eye catchlights, and to just get more light on the people, on the shade side.

There is always a balancing act between showing a sunny, autumnal backdropo, and in how much light is on the face in tios tyope of against-the-light shooting.

A big suggestion would be to seek out the EDGES, the very,very edges, of the shadow cast by a large tree; there will be aband of three to six feet where the light is more what is called "open shade", such as we see in the beginnign shot of the parents; a place where the light side behind them is bright, but the against-the-light side is also fairly bright.

Wow, that is tremendously helpful!! Thank you!!
You're right, the orange ears are something I have never thought about, and I'll definitely always take note of that now! Love the tip about seeking the very edges of a shadow cast by a tree. Never heard this trick but will give it a shot.
Thank you so much!

 

[Trever1t]

I like orange ears!!

I'll bet you $1 you are using matrix metering. Switch to spot metering! Always meter for your subjects, then learn to balance the ambient later.

 

[Derrel]

Thanks. Yes, the ears...I got reamed on years ago for some shots that I made agaisnt the light, and in which I had not even really noticed the transilluminaton of the ears...it was quite a blow to me at the time.

As far as the outside of a tree or building shadow: often times, deep inside the tree shadow, there will be dark, gloomy shadowy lighting. But out at the very edges, the deeper shade will give way to what is called open shade.

At the edges, there will be some of what I call sky-light, and that sky-light can create a nice eyeball catchlight, and some shadow fill-in lighting. Keep in mind, this is not sun-light, but sky-light: light from a big, broad expanse of sky. It is on these edges where people do not squint too much, and so their eyeballs will actually reflect, and show, the sky-light, as a catchlight in their eyes, and their eye sockets will not be shadowed.

 

[Drive-By-Shooter]

With such a bright background, some additional lighting via flash or reflector would have helped.
It would be nice to have darkened the brightly lit background, too. But that would be difficult with to do with a flash because your maximum shutter speed is limited by the flash and you'd need to stop down, losing that nice out of focus you captured. This is why a reflector is helpful on a bright day; you can used a faster shutter speed to darken the background while lighting the subjects.