Senior Portraits

[Sharna]

I did a Senior Portrait Session for a friend of mine. I loved it and I will do more.

Here are a couple of Courtney.

1. Backlit by the sun

Canon 430 EXII Fired at camera left via Pocket Wizard Flex TT5's through a 14" Lumodi Beauty Dish with the diffuser attatched
F/5.6 | 1/800 | ISO 200 | @ 48mm

2. Against a wall in shade

Canon 430 EXII Fired at camera right via Pocket Wizard Flex TT5's through a 14" Lumodi Beauty Dish with the diffuser attatched
F/5.6 | 1/800 | ISO 200 | @ 50mm

3. Against another wall in the shade

Canon 430 EXII Fired at camera right via Pocket Wizard Flex TT5's through a 14" Lumodi Beauty Dish with the diffuser attatched

F/5.6 | 1/1250 | ISO 200 | @ 53mm

Comments and Critiques Welcome and Encouraged.

Thank You!

Sharna

 

[STM]

I think the second one is by far the best of the three Sharna though the shadows behind her are somewhat bothersome. It is much more in keeping with what yearbooks are looking for, for senior portraiture. The other two have somewhat of a "snapshottish" (if there is such a word!) effect to them. The plant in front of the first one is distracting. The third one especially, seems out of place; the outfit she is wearing is what most people would consider 'inappropriate" for a senior portrait. I would also remove the "watermark" in the lower left hand corner before the image is submitted to the customer for submission to the yearbook.

Here is an image by a good friend of mine, Peter Demott, who does a lot of senior portraits. The most successful senior portraits involve something the person enjoys doing, be it a hobby, etc. Peter loves to photograph people with their pets. This is a very casual style portrait that show her personality to good effect.

 

[MReid]

1 the flash is to strong and the setup is not ideal, with the distracting background and foreground.
2 move her away from the wall so there will not be shadows, the pose looks awkward, the flash angle is from to far below creating unflattering shadows on her face.
3 the background is distracting, her body angle is to extreme to the camera, underexposed, looks somewhat oversharpened.

Work on your flash to ambient mix, overall scene setups, capturing your subjects personality, posing.

She is a very cute young lady, best of luck to you.

 

[Big Mike]

I agree, the first one looks like it's got too much flash vs the ambient ratio. Also, this creates too high of a portrait ratio for the scene. I'm not a fan of the grass right in front of her.

#2 is nice. Mostly I think it's the great smile/expression and eye contact. The other looks a little forced in comparison. But in this one, you have the light source below her. Sometimes this isn't a problem, as it's not too low, but with her in particular, I think that a higher light angle would make her chin look better. See #3 for example of what I mean.

#3 is nice as well, I really like the lighting on this one. As I mentioned, the smile/expression isn't a perfect as in #2, but still very good. One thing I'd have liked to see, is to have her move her arm forward to cover/eliminate the 'armpit lines'.