Portrait c & c help please

[Marvin]

Hi All,

I have been asked by my mother-in-law to take a picture of each of the kids for her to hang on the wall. I want to do this well and I'm really not that great! I went outside today and had a bit of a play - I want to do available light portraits. This is the first go with my 9 year old. I had a reflector (actually, the silver thing from the car!) and was trying to reflect the light onto her face. This resulted in lots of "Oh, it's hurting my eyes. It's so bright" comments and many pictures with eyes shut. We also ended up with quite a few shadows from her nose so obviously didn't have the reflector right. I was concentrating so hard on getting better lighting on her face that her hair ended up looking dodgy and forgot about the background and didn't see the light patches on her clothes!

So.. I am asking.

What can I do to improve on my next try - ie posing, background, lighting?

Is there anything that looks ok in this picture?

Thanks!

Lee


D200 with 50mm 1.8 @ 1/1250th f3.5 ISO 200

[Oz_Beachside]

you have made a very pleasing portrait there, looks great.

for this image, I tried a black vingette at 40% opacity and it makes her pop out from the background, and dulls the highlight on her knee, give it a go! the angle of view is nice, and her expression is a delight.

for next time, perhaps consider a white reflector (like an A1 sized board from the newsagents, or foam core from the art supplies), its a little softer, and the shadows may be softer than the sharp line from the nose in this shot. and if possible, have your assistant divert the "bright light" away from the subjects eyes between takes to relieve the sore eyes.

[zafra52]

I agree with Oz_Beachside. An 80 cent white card or polystyrene board can do the trick next time. Did you do a white balance on the camera before taking the picture? I believe this preferable to do it afterwards in you software package.
I would recommend you separate the subject about a metre from the background and use a wide aperture adequate to
keep your subject sharp, but your background out of focus.

I like this picture and I don't think there is much wrong with it. I guess if you want to play with it, you could blur a bit the sharper left side of the background just to see if it bring out the subject a bit more, but I believe your mother-in-law should be quite happy with your effort. Unless of course, she prefers conservative postures in portraits.

[Marvin]

Thanks guys for the great information and help. I will pop out and get some white card/polystyrene tomorrow. This is just a play, not my final picture so I really hope to improve on it. I didn't do a white balance on camera before but the original looked a bit warm to me so I cooled it down. I will also try the vignette to see what it look like.
Much appreciated!
Lee

[Alex]

Nice natural looking, pleasing portrait. The composition is peasing although a greater DoF woul help to have her lower body in focus as well. Alternatively the part below waist can be cropped out.

I think you've done well in terms of lighting already.


Well done.

Alex

[zafra52]

Marvin, I've been reading some books on portraits and child photography I borrowed from my local library. I recommend reading Photographing Children and Babies How to take Great Pictures by Michael Heron ISBN 1-58115-420-8. It gave me lots of ideas and one in particular is to tell youngsters don't smile to avoid a grimace. It made sense to me because I remember playing that game and within a few minutes we couldn't contain our laughters.
Michael Heron also recommends to capture all kind of child moods because they are indicative of his/her complex personality. So, you could create a composite image showing the different moods of your subject, just an idea.

[Marvin]

Thanks. I'll check out the local library and see if the book is there. Great ideas!