Portraits of my daughter

[Josh66]

1

2

Both taken with the EF 85mm f/1.8 @ f/2.8.


I don't have anything to use as a decent backdrop, so I decided to use light.
I put some light on the wall to blow it out. Her face is lit by window light.

I would have liked to do the opposite and light her and have the background black but my lights aren't bright enough for that, and I still don't have a flash (...soon).


I had to desaturate it (mostly the oranges) a little to make it look right - two different light sources, I couldn't get her face and the background light balanced right.


What do you think?
I think it came out OK, but I would like to have had better light to work with.

 

[itznfb]

i'm not too experienced with portraits but looks like you did great with what you have. the only thing i don't like is that you can see the window reflected in her eyes. generally those reflections don't bother me but you can actually see the window.

very cute kid by the way.

 

[Josh66]

Thanks.

...At 100% you can see clouds in the sky too, lol.

 

[adamwilliamking]

Love the focus on the eyes.
Only suggestion would be a relector to balance the exposures.

 

[Josh220]

i'm not too experienced with portraits but looks like you did great with what you have. the only thing i don't like is that you can see the window reflected in her eyes. generally those reflections don't bother me but you can actually see the window.

very cute kid by the way.

Generally those reflections are required. You need catch light in portraits. While his may be larger than normal, you do need them. Since his are caused by a window rather than a flash, or smaller light source, they just appear bigger.

 

[Josh66]

Thanks.

Yeah, I didn't even think about a reflector. I think I should have exposed the background one stop less (I didn't because her face would have been underexposed).

It might have worked with a reflector.

 

[adamwilliamking]

Thanks.

Yeah, I didn't even think about a reflector. I think I should have exposed the background one stop less (I didn't because her face would have been underexposed).

It might have worked with a reflector.

Yeah bud, Im thinking a reflector on 45 left would even keep tho nice cloud catchs! Reshoot time!! lol I kidd.

Good work.

Almost forgot; Cute Effin' Kid!!

 

[Josh66]

Thanks.

Yeah, I didn't even think about a reflector. I think I should have exposed the background one stop less (I didn't because her face would have been underexposed).

It might have worked with a reflector.

Yeah bud, Im thinking a reflector on 45 left would even keep tho nice cloud catchs! Reshoot time!! lol I kidd.

Good work.

Almost forgot; Cute Effin' Kid!!

Plenty of time for that.

I printed a few out from this session - they look better on paper; the whites aren't so white, they're just however white the paper is.

Thanks. She likes posing for me.
I find that I have to put her on a stool though - if I put her on a chair, she tries to climb off. On the stool she won't try to climb off, so it's a lot easier to get a good shot - she's not moving around so much.
The stool is the same height as the chair, so I don't think it's that she's scared of falling off - there just isn't as much room to move around.