A lot of it is too closeup, it's nearly all overexposed, and there's obviously ones where you used way way wayyyy too much flash, probably pop-up flash (#5, #6)...It looks amateurish honestly, sorry...
Based on Exif data, it seems like you were hovering around the 1/1600 to 1/3200 shutter speed area, you could have easily gone to 1/6000 or 1/8000 to get a properly exposed image while still retaining the shallow depth of field (f2.8 or f2) if thats what you were going for...I do it routinely, or you could use a ND filter...
I'm sure the couple will like these, technicalities aside you can obviously see the love between them! It looks like a really challenging time of day/direction of light to deal with, sometimes you have to work with what you can! Looks like a great beach to shoot at during magic hour though!
marti.g3 wrote:
Do you really want an honest eval or just some nice comments ?
Whatever it was I wanted, did you think I wanted your question? If not, then why do you think asking it is particularly helpful?
Everyone else, thank you for your honest assessments. Lots to learn. I was trying out something new, and it didn't play out too well.
williamkazak wrote:
Tell us how you exposed and how you processed them.
I spot metered on skin tones and let the background fall where it would, especially since I was going for shallow DOF. PP in LR with VSCO Tmax preset, turned to color. In retrospect, the use of off-camera flash was a disaster. I should just delete those two shots.
I did get a note from the clients saying they and family loved the results, but I know I need to do better. Thanks again, everyone.
Try to avoid shooting on the beach mid afternoon on a sunny day - closer to the sundown the light is a lot more forgiving or early in the morning - but honestly thats secondary here. The main problem is posing, the girl is pretty heavy and he is skinny. You should have concentrated on more of a faraway shots and for any closeup shots she should have been tucked close to him and at least partially behind him. I would recommend looking up some of the creativelive classes from Bambi Cantrell to help you learn posing.
Shooting on the beach usually assumes that people expect to see beautiful beach/ocean background in their photos - with the way you exposed them that is certainly not the case.
Finally - shallow DOF is a tool - it is awesome when you have busy background as it isolates your subject - on an empty beach it does nearly nothing .... at least at the focal lengths you were shooting...
And get that flash of-camera !!!
@AlexF: thanks for your feedback. Very useful stuff there.
1. The Flash was never on-camera, but it was hideous anyway!
2. The shoot was scheduled for 9am, but they got there at 9:35am. It was also supposed to be overcast, and well, no dice there either!
3. Dead on the posing thing. He was shorter than her, too, and I simply didn't handle the trifecta very well. I struggle with posing, anyway, because I aim for less "set" stuff and more natural (if it works), but it didn't work here, so back to the drawing board.
1. In general it looks like you used flash where you might have gotten away with less and didn't use it in the bright backlit shots where it would have helped to level the exposure.
2. Posing in general you have used the same pose over and over with the heads together or pointing towards each other. Mix it up a bit, lots of examples to be found on here of options to work with.
3. Time of day here was your biggest challenge, shoot much earlier or 2-2.5 hours before sunset to soften the light that you will be dealing with.
tdurnan wrote:
Time of day here was your biggest challenge, shoot much earlier or 2-2.5 hours before sunset to soften the light that you will be dealing with.
Yup. That's the clincher. Having a real time getting clients that want to go out early or late. Don't quite know why, but that's part of the challenge for me.
beside the the flash/time if day... what if you go back to the beach and look at it if you where to take images to show case the beach.....
What would you do?
how would you capture the pier? above -below - laying down on the pier.... wide angle - narrow DOF shots.
what about the water and beach?
any plants around?
would you shoot the parking lot? probably not ... so why can we see it in the background.
how would you capture people using the beach?
if you go out and do this and the process the images. what do you have? what would you change?
Now you are looking at the beach differently and you have not even added the couple yet.
Go do it.....
Now lets add our couple.... how would you look at the beach and the couple....?
What would you include in your frame.....what would not be allowed to be in your frame?
... and yet, it didn't pan out this time. I think in my drive to become a better portrait photographer, I've left too much of the other good stuff by the wayside. Hmm... Good advice there on re-thinking those perspectives to include people.
I think this would have been a scenario that was best avoided rather than coped with. If they were set on shots on the beach maybe telling them that a couple of hours before sunset is the only time it would work – if they really wanted it they would have made time, if not they would have been ok with another location.
The usual ways to deal with light like this is:
1. Find some shade
2. Backlight against something darker
3. Backlight and use heavy flash to keep the sky from burning out (like http://www.emilysotoblog.com/queen-of-the-sun/)
1 and 2 you couldn’t do because of the location and 3 needs powerful strobes/modifiers and looks more appropriate in a fashion magazine. About the only possible one is use an assistant to hold a diffuser over them and shoot tight shots but it’s far from ideal.
Here is a natural lit shoot in similar conditions to yours:
... and yet, it didn't pan out this time. I think in my drive to become a better portrait photographer, I've left too much of the other good stuff by the wayside. Hmm... Good advice there on re-thinking those perspectives to include people.
one question ..... Why are these NOT apart of the above e-session?!?!?!?
good lord my friend .... these are sweet.
the line has been drawn .... we are keeping tabs now!
Either ask the couple back for a re-shot or bring it on the next e-session.
there is some talent there waiting to be unleashed on your clients.
It's the light... always hard to get around it. I was also trying some new things (for me), namely the shallow DOF and trying to get the back-light to wrap around. Not happening here, but you always have to stretch yourself a bit. I'm just relieved (and somewhat surprised) the clients think these are great.
Incidentally, if I may bore you a bit, I have really struggled to transition from fine-art landscape photography of the sort shown in those last 3 shots vs. portraiture. Somehow having all the time to setup the shot on a tripod doesn't feel quite as frantic as when I have people in front of my lens. I think I just need to take a deep breath (and get my clients to show up earlier, too )
But I bet it would be fun.