Portraits
Kid portraits
Thu Nov 23rd - 7:10am
All of the toddler/kid portraits I've done before have been with a backdrop and full studio lighting, following the focal length 'rules' of 85mm for full-length and 135mm for close-up shots.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to photograph lots of children in someone's home and I took a very different approach, using a single hand-held flash and doing nearly every shot at 50mm. This allowed me to move around wherever the kids moved, rather than having to wait until they moved back into the position that the lights were set for. End result: Much more natural, intimate pictures, that hopefully capture each child's personality.
Some of my favourites from the day…
Shot specs:
Canon 1D • 17-40 f/4L • 40mm • 1/500s • ISO 200
Various apertures in the f/5.6 to f/11 range.
(Note: 40mm on a Canon 1D is approx 50mm equivalent.)
Lighting was a 550EX with Lightsphere (which I'm lovng by the way!) triggered by an ST-E2 wireless transmitter until it proved useless outside at which point I switched to Pocket Wizards and stayed with them for the rest of the day. For some shots I hand-held the flash, for others it was on a light stand at 45 degrees off camera axis. One huge advantage of using the 1D/550EX combination is the 1/500s sync speed. With studio strobes you're pretty much stuck at 1/125s and that's not really fast enough for the more active kids.
Stephen Hayward’s mermaid
Wed Nov 22nd - 6:40am
Stephen Hayward is creating a mermaid as part of a local art project. I wanted to get a shot of Stephen with the mermaid as a work-in-progress for the village newsletter, as well as just for my own interest.
Once the mermaid is finished there will likely be pictures of her in every newspaper around the region as part of coverage for the whole project, but I'm also interested in the micro-story, the behind-the-scenes peak at something being created in a local guy's workshop.
I'll probably give a different picture to the newsletter, something a bit more 'safe', but this one is my personal favourite. I like the informal, almost candid vibe, and whenever possible I love working in a wide ratio with the subject over to one side. Plus this was the one composition that focussed on Stephen rather than the mermaid. In these "artist with his creation" shots I do think it's good to keep the artist as the main subject, with the creation in the middle-ground. No doubt a lot of people disagree with that but you've gotta go with your instincts!
Shot specs:
Canon 1D • 17-40 f/4L • 17mm • 1/500s • f/5.6 • ISO 200
Lighting set-up was a Canon 550EX on a light stand about 45 degrees off camera axis to the left, triggered by an ST-E2 wireless transmitter. I used a Lightsphere II on the flash, pointed straight up with the inverted dome on. It may have been a better idea to use direct flash, positioned closer to Stephen, to create some light fall-off to right of frame. Would certainly be more dramatic but I think the even lighting works for this shot.
Note the subtlety of Stephen's shadow. That really demonstrates how well the Lightsphere throws light around the whole room. The shot is entirely flash lit, no ambient. (I avoid ambient whenever possible. When it comes to processing I have quite poor colour awareness so I prefer to kill the ambient and just set the white balance to 6000 Kelvin to get nice skin tones.)
Paul Taggart portrait
Mon Nov 20th - 3:45am
I've posted a version of this photograph before but it was processed on an uncalibrated monitor and I wanted to re-process it now that (hopefully) the colours will be right. I also wanted to contribute it to the Strobist group on Flickr.
This photo was from a shoot to publicise an upcoming charity exhibition of the artist's paintings. It was my first location portrait commission and although we both expected the paper to use the standard "artist posing near easel" shot, Paul was kind enough to spend 2 hours with me, allowing me the opportunity to experiment with a variety of lighting techniques, both indoors and out.
In the end the paper did of course run the easel shot, but this was my favourite picture from the day. I must thank Paul for being the perfect subject, and for tolerating countless technical hiccups at the beginning of the shoot. It is the photographer's job to put the subject at ease, but on this occasion it ended up being the other way round!
Click here to view a gallery of unprocessed shots
Shot specs:
Canon 1Ds • 70-200 f/2.8L IS • 135mm • 1/80s • f/18 • ISO 100
The reason for the crazy f/18 aperture was nothing artistic or technical, it was simply that I'd set the flash power way too high and rather than waste more of Paul's time by fine-tuning it I just dialled down the aperture a couple of stops.
Lighting set-up was a Bowens 1000DX with silver brolly positioned about six feet in front of Paul, a foot above his eyeline, triggered by Pocket Wizards. Aperture was set for the strobe, shutter speed for the sky. With hindsight I should have gone up to 1/160s and under-exposed the ambient by another stop to bring out some drama in the brickwork.
Paul Keating environmental portrait
Fri Nov 10th - 11:55am
Portrait of a local landscape photographer, Paul Keating.
Paul lives just along the street from me. We're in a small village (actually three small villages all linked together) in the Scottish Highlands. Over the last year or so Paul has had great success selling prints of his landscape pictures in a local shop, so I suggested to the village newsletter that we should do a profile of him: Basically a lightweight local-interest article / interview along the lines of "meet the man behind the pictures".
Paul's landscapes mostly feature the sea so we spent about half an hour on the beach today doing an environmental portrait for the front page lede. We did lots of shots on the rocks and out on a pier, and just for once the main shot worked out exactly how I had intended so that's the one I think we'll use. It was one of the last shots we did as all of the other ones required better light so I did those first.
Click here to view a gallery of unprocessed shots
Shot specs:
Canon 1D • 17-40 f/4L • 1/500s • 17mm • f/9 • ISO 200
Lighting was a Canon 550EX on a light stand at approx 75 degrees to the left, about six feet away from Paul and a foot above his eyeline, triggered by an ST-E2 wireless transmitter. Everything was chimp metered, manual settings.
For the camera spotters, Paul's camera is a Canon 5D with grip and 17-40 f/4L.
Visit Paul's web site: Scottish Impressions
