I am so appreciative of the comments and advice given every time I share my work here. I find it quite eye opening and I always want to improve!
One comment - I love a serious portrait, which i know is not everyone's cup of tea, especially when talking about children. I suppose that's one thing that you either love it or leave it when it comes to my style of photography!
With that said, here is a recent shoot I did. I changed my editing slightly to reflect some of the comments that I received here (and my significant other, who always says my portraits are too dark), mainly the strong vingettes and overall darkness of the portraits. I do love me a dark portrait and a dramatic vingette, but I also want a well-exposed and pleasing to the eye portrait. With that said, here are the results.
Greg! I have no idea what I'm doing wrong - my modeling light is on as high as it goes, the lights in my studio are bright - I literally don't know how to get the pupils smaller other than to shine a flashlight directly in their eyes right as I take the picture! I'll have to do a BTS shot because this truly has me stumped!
Yeah, that is a tough one. I shot studio work for about 10 years, but not really this style...
There are better qualified people who could probably give some input.
That said, I *know* that the parents will be blown away with these portraits (I certainly would *love* a shot like this of my daughter) - truly beautiful work.
Beautiful set, but like the comments in the other set, I find these too dark, brooding and melancholic. I don't have to see a phony smile on all the shots, but if I were a client I sure wouldn't be interested in a large print of my child brooding.
I can anticipate all the conversations with Grandma and all the clients adult friends, nice portrait, but why is your child so unhappy? Are you a bad parent?
Very nice. Incredibly smooth for being so detailed. It would be cool to see prints.
Two thoughts:
#1 - Do you edit on an a 5k imac?
I have a 5k imac and the screen is unrealistically bright. Turning off auto brightness and manually dimming the screen a few clicks gives a much better impression of what the image will print like and what users without imacs see. Personally I like the overall look but would expect to need some highlight brightening if I was printing.
#2 - Pupils - Your modelling lights aren't bright enough.
I think most modelling lights are too dim to begin with and adding modifiers seems to drop there output exponentially compared to the flash. If you can swap the modeling bulbs with brighter LED bulbs that might help. Another option is a dedicated modeling light with the flash turned down/off. You can use that light without a modifier to REALLY blast the pupils but it will turn off for the shot.
Nice work. Keep on shooting.
Matt
dawnkyung wrote:
Greg! I have no idea what I'm doing wrong - my modeling light is on as high as it goes, the lights in my studio are bright - I literally don't know how to get the pupils smaller other than to shine a flashlight directly in their eyes right as I take the picture! I'll have to do a BTS shot because this truly has me stumped!
Although I like your choice of background, setting, clothes and vignette, I find them mostly too dark. Numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, and especially #10 the skin tones could use tweaking to brighten them up by a luminosity mask.
I tend to agree with others that the mood is a bit too sullen for my liking but not by much to fit in with the painterly style.
Modelling lights:
You don't mention your modelling light output but 250 watt tungsten or LED equivalent of 38 watts makes a difference in the pupil size. Anything less than that produces large pupils.
dawnkyung wrote:
Greg! I have no idea what I'm doing wrong - my modeling light is on as high as it goes, the lights in my studio are bright - I literally don't know how to get the pupils smaller other than to shine a flashlight directly in their eyes right as I take the picture! I'll have to do a BTS shot because this truly has me stumped!
Thank you all for the lovely comments.
It's pretty simple actually, get a small intense light source and have them look at it. The eye can be "tricked" into believing it needs to close down without having enough intensity to affect the exposure. The trick is small - you want a point light source. A bright LED for example (but not some of these mega lumen monsters they sell).
film_4ever wrote:
Beautiful set, but like the comments in the other set, I find these too dark, brooding and melancholic. I don't have to see a phony smile on all the shots, but if I were a client I sure wouldn't be interested in a large print of my child brooding.
I can anticipate all the conversations with Grandma and all the clients adult friends, nice portrait, but why is your child so unhappy? Are you a bad parent?
YMMV.
Yet if you look at the PPA awards this style is very much in the winners circle. The reason is simple - they take a portrait and turn it into something reminiscent of a Dutch Master painting. In fact some studios do process these shots through filters that make them appear as a painting. A great example is MediaChance's Dynamic Auto Painter.
all the comments about pupil size and/or mood and/or non-smiling are nothing more than personal opinions of the people making them. I'm not criticizing the opinions, but let's be real, they are just opinions and are NOT rules and dictates for portrait photography. In my opinion (that yes I'm also permitted to have), I find these photos beautiful and stylish and I vigorously disagree with the critical comments made by a handful of others.
Don't be afraid to follow your own compass and disregard the opinions of others. I"m not saying the opinions in this thread are good or bad, just that uniqueness is something to be treasured as an artist.
There's a lot to like here. The lighting is very nice, but I wonder if you enhanced it in post.
Do you use a calibrated monitor? I looked at these on a calibrated monitor and I don't think the exposure is incorrect.
What is your post processing technique? I find the retouching a little strong, especially for the age of the subjects. It's teetering on the edge of a porcelain look. Check out frequency separation retouching. It's a good technique to clean up skin while still leaving detail.
As mentioned, this is a very traditional PPA style of portraiture. As a former member back in the mid-70s, I often wonder if PPA has become an anachronism, especially since the old time mom and pop photo studio is pretty much a thing of the past. Even in the early '80s before digital the trend was going away from more formal portraits to more informal "lifestyle" type portraiture.
He sure did.