After dipping my toe back into photography this past spring for the first time in about a decade, I decided to try my hand at shooting some outdoor family portraits. My wife lined up some friends and neighbors and over the past couple of weeks I've done three shoots, learning a lot via experience as well as C&C.
In pt. 1 I was really happy with the shots overall, but in some the people were a bit underexposed. I was relying on my wife holding a reflector to get some ambient light on them and at times it came up short.
In pt. 2 I brought a 400ws strobe and a 60" wing-type umbrella. I was fairly happy with the results, although they were still a bit underexposed in-camera. I shot raw, of course, so it wasn't a big deal to bump exposure a bit and selectively brush in some lightness on the faces.
For this most recent set I swapped the umbrella for a 38" softbox - the largest non-umbrella modifier that I have - for more maneuverability. I used a 1/4 CTO gel to help balance the flash with the ambient. I also did a better job dropping my shutter speed and raising my ISO as the sun set to keep the ambient light levels in the right place. I got more aggressive with my flash power, and it helped a good bit.
A few images from this shoot are below. They're not perfect but I'm fairly pleased with them. Still, I'd appreciate any advice on how to level-up on the quality of images. One note: in each of these sets I have left the images uncropped (or very lightly-cropped) to give the client more flexibility in how they are used.
Thanks very much for the feedback, Greg. I do see what you mean about WB variation. I actually intentionally used a couple of different looks in postprocessing to make the shots towards the end of the session a bit warmer, but I'm still not completely satisfied. This is definitely something that I can work on.
In terms of poses, I do have a little bit of variation across the set of 30 pics that I delivered to the client, but you're right about needing more variety. I have a couple of sessions with friends planned for the upcoming weekend, so I'll work on that.
I think you did well. Portrait photography is a huge art form in and of itself. One I am very "challenged" with! The fine tuning, as Greg advises, is what will guide you for the next session.
Dan
