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09/06/2004 05:18:01 PM · #1 |
My family wanted their pictures taken... so I did the best I could do. Here are the first four I've color corrected, I have a million more to go, but would like to hear what people have to say before I continue on. Any advice would be much appreciated! Thanks in advance.
   
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09/06/2004 05:22:31 PM · #2 |
i like the first two, its cool that your family actually lets you take pictures of them. mine just run away.
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09/06/2004 05:23:29 PM · #3 |
I like what you've done here. I would only change a few things. I would have any dead space in front of the subject (1st shot) the second one is pretty good for cropping, i'll leave that one alone. in the 3rd shot I would put the couple more in the middle as I don't believe the window is part of the family. the fourth one is technically 'correct' you have a mid shot, they are in the middle, they don't have google eyes or lips.
put some creative lighting to the fourth one, you've sold a wall portrait. fix the cropping on the third and those folks would probably buy a billion copies.
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09/06/2004 05:31:59 PM · #4 |
thanks, guys. :) i really appreciate the comments and tips, i'll take them to heart. joe, you're very right. the window isn't a part of the family, but the flowers are. my mom wanted to keep them in there, so reluctantly, i did. i'll crop them out and order a square photo for myself, but i've gotta keep mom happy. ;) again, thank you both.
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09/06/2004 07:54:52 PM · #5 |
Anna,
Portraits truly depend on what you're shooting for. If the family just wanted family shots to keep in an album then I think you captured some wonderful shots. You seemed to work with the subjects to give the viewer something that they can connect with.
If you want to talk about little nits that you can consider next time you start to shoot a portrait then there are pretty much always little things you could do differently to create a different image; not necessarily better, just different.
For family portraits I think you did fine. My shots of my daughter aren't technically fantastic shots but they mean alot to parents and grandparents.
If you're interested in discussing some of the merits of the photos for portraits then here are some of the things that I think you did right. You did very well with your lighting. You don't have hard shadows on the subjects and they are lit relative to their environments. That's a good job. You got catchlights in the eyes on the first photo and that's a big plus; it lends a sense of life and action to the photo. You connected with the subjects or at least you got them to project some emotion in the photos. This helps you viewers to maintain interest and to take some personal investment in the portraits. It's easier to enjoy portraits if we as viewers can feel a sense of connection to the subjects. You took a shot at composition with these. Its not just the flowers in the third shot but how you moved the subject off center in the first two shots and how you have multiple levels of interest in the third photo (always best to have subjects standing at different heights in group settings as that creates an artificial sense of action).
If you're still interested then the first shot has a couple of things that can give it a weird feeling. Generally when you're shooting a closeup headshot of someone you'll find that the subject opens one eye more than the other. This can be especially evident when the subject smiles. If you notice this about a subject it is customary to position yourself and pose the subject so that the more open eye is closest to the view because the perspective of seeing an eye farther away but larger in size can disorient a viewer. Unless you're aiming for an artistic interpretation you would normally want to have the face turned slightly to the photo right (the subject's left) in this first photo. Next the composition you selected is a good idea here as you make the photo more dynamic by moving the main interest of the subject (eyes and lips) out of the center of the frame. Putting the subject dead in the center tends to make for a boring composition. Having said that I think cropping in a little closer on the right side of the photo might help to direct your viewers to the subject's main areas of interest better than the space over the subject's shoulder. The use of negative space as an element is good but with such a tight crop I don't think it works well here as I am perceiving some texture in the space rather than just empty or dark space. It becomes slightly distracting rather than an enforcement that guides your viewer back towards the subject. Lastly I haven't shot the Oly C-8080 so I don't know what's possible but its worth noting the effects that lenses produce for portraiture. The more wide open the aperture (f-stop) the more shallow the depth of field. In a closeup shot like this you want to use a shallow depth of field to direct your viewers to the main topics of interest (the subject's eyes and lips). With a built-in lens you'll find that you won't get as shallow a depth-of-field at the same aperture as you might on a SLR lens, especially on a longer focal length lens like a 100mm or a 200mm. In this shot the subject's face maintains some fullness that might have been blurred out around the edges with a faster aperture (I'm guessing that the camera was set for something like f/5.6). Perhaps an f/3.5 or f/2.8 might give the blurred context of the shoulders and hair while maintaining the sharp focus around the facial features. You may have to play with your camera to try producing some good background blur (called bokeh; pronounced bow-kuh). That blur helps to separate your subject from his or her environment and isolate them as the point of interest in a closup headshot like most of these shots seem to be.
Well, that's just a cursory treatment. I think you did a wonderful job and as I mentioned, I think these are great family shots. It truly depends on the purpose of the portrait but I think these not only work as family photos but show promise for you own eye in taking portraits.
Kev
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09/06/2004 08:00:01 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by annasense:
thanks, guys. :) i really appreciate the comments and tips, i'll take them to heart. joe, you're very right. the window isn't a part of the family, but the flowers are. my mom wanted to keep them in there, so reluctantly, i did. i'll crop them out and order a square photo for myself, but i've gotta keep mom happy. ;) again, thank you both. |
Anna! warning! if she loves those flowers than you did exactly what you should have done, INCLUDE THEM :). Only listen to me about basics, when you know something personal like that about your subject, it's your duty to use that. I would then suggest moving them closer to the flowers and making it all one giant expression of who your mother is :) Thanks for listening and keep up the great work.
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09/06/2004 09:29:45 PM · #7 |
These are nice, but I noticed on the second photo that the focus seems to be more on the body rather than the eyes. I think more focus/macro on the eyes would have it stand out more. Love the DOF. Nice shots! :)
Message edited by author 2004-09-06 21:30:31.
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09/06/2004 10:09:42 PM · #8 |
THANK YOU all! These are all things that I either didn't know about or didn't think of, but will definitely put to use in the future.
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