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Hollywood Nini, Nacogdoches TX Nini looking like a Hollywood movie star with a three light technique. The pose is all Sue Bryce, the queen of posing that I have been studying for over a year now. This photo is from our anniversary shoot, taken in our carport after dark, during the rain. Nini had gotten all dolled up with hair and makeup at a salon, and since the rain cut our shoot short, I set up a little studio lighting in the carport! Nini was in front of the camera for only about two hours that day. It was my most successful portrait shoot to date considering I made several photos worth processing in that two hour shoot. I’m finally getting the hang of this after two years working with artificial light and posing. Check out one of my personal favorites from the shoot here. For this photo, Nini is lit with two softboxes behind Nini at 45 degree angles towards the camera and a beauty dish in front of Nini about three feet in front of and about one to two feet above her head. Her pose is not perfect, and the one thing I would change about the pose is I would have her separate her left elbow from her body so her waste line was more prominent. But overall I was happy that I didn’t entirely freeze up after only one or two poses during this shoot, which can happen when you’re subject isn’t a natural poser. To make sure I never freeze up during posing again, I’m taking Sue Bryce’s 28 days of video challenges on CreativeLIVE. Yesterday her challenge video was two hours long and Sue walked us through two complete portrait sessions with five outfits and several backgrounds/all natural lighting techniques. Today her challenge is “one composition, five poses.” Throughout the 28 days Sue will not only show us how to pose women for contemporary portraiture, but will also show us how to pose couples, groups, men, and families. Sue doesn’t advertise to these groups and has never showed us how to shoot them before, but has over 20 years of experience to share with us. Check it out at: http://www.creativelive.com/courses/28-days-sue-bryce Critiques are always welcome. Daily photo: March 13, 2013, taken February 9, 2013
Nini’s Closeup, Nacogdoches TX We took this photo right when Nini walked out of the salon after getting her massage, hair and makeup done. I wanted to get a closeup that I could give to the makeup artist to show off their nice work. Until now though, I haven’t been able to find the makeup artist on facebook or anywhere, so eventually I’ll have to call the salon ask for their email address. At this point in the day it was a little cloudy, but there was plenty of nice soft light, so we shot with all natural light. I added a lot of contrast back into the image in post processing to give it some depth. To do so, I mostly darkened the shadows on her camera left side and on her neck. This is a technique I learned from Lindsay Addler on CreativeLIVE’s photoshop week last week. Because of the nice soft light there wasn’t much retouching required for this photo. My favorite photo from our shoot is this wider angle portrait I shared last week. Critiques are always welcome. Daily photo: March 6, 2013, taken February 9, 2013
Pretty Shadows, Nacogdoches TX My beautiful wife in the shadows! Nini spent all morning getting a massage, and her hair and makeup done, but after lunch the sky darkened quickly. I had planned to shoot with natural light but brought my lighting equipment just in case. It started sprinkling and Nini was cold, but she toughed it out in her dress and we got a few good shots before packing up and heading home. This is the widest portrait I have of Nini or anyone else for that matter. One of the goals I had for this shoot was to make some wide portraits. My portrait gallery is filled with too many closeups and head and shoulder shots. I have two major challenges when shooting wide-angle portraits. The first challenge is finding a wide enough background that is not cluttered or distracting. The second challenge is lighting the subject without getting lights and light stands in the frame. For this series I used a speedlite beauty dish on a light stand, which is just out of the frame to the right in this photo. Check out my other full body portrait of Nini here. Critiques are always welcome. Daily photo: February 28, 2013, taken February 9, 2013
Nini’s Favorite Preset, Nacogdoches TX Nini has been begging me to finish processing this photo since the day we did this shoot. We looked at these photos over lunch actually, and I applied a preset that I adapted from one of Marcus Bell’s free presets, and Nini immediately loved the photo and kept coming back to it. Now she keeps telling me to apply that preset to every photo! But I did a lot more than just apply a preset to this photo. I think this photo conveys a strong emotion, despite technical imperfections. I think these recent portraits of Nini have a good fit and consistency between pose, hair, makeup, location, lighting, and processing. To me, all of these elements feel like they go together nicely. What do you think? CreativeLIVE is live and FREE all week with PHOTOSHOP WEEK! Join 12 of the world’s best instructors for over 40 classes on two separate channels. The workshops are streamed live all day, and when the workshops end, the replay begins and continues all night, all FREE. If you’ve always wanted to learn a little more about photoshop or lightroom, or if you're just starting out with photoshop, now is the time to invest in your skills. You can even watch on your iphone or other mobile device. There really is no excuse! Go to www.creativeLIVE.com/live Critiques are always welcome. Daily photo: February 26, 2013, taken February 9, 2013 UPDATE: Thank you to everyone that gave constructive feedback on this photo. Several people mentioned that they did not like the blurry pole on the left side of the frame and no one said that they liked it. To balance out the conversation I’ll walk you through my thought process on the pole. This is in no way intended to be a rebuttal. I think the pole is a legitimate critique and understand that some people may not like it or may find it distracting according to their own criteria. Just like some people may not like the background at all, or Nini’s pose, or my retouching, or any other element of the photo. I’m only writing this in the spirit of sharing and hopefully someone will find it helpful. I always enjoy receiving constructive feedback no matter how harsh. I am a ruthless critic of my own work and have developed a very thick skin as a result! My thought process on the pole on the left side of the frame is two fold. First, and most importantly, my wife and I both were really drawn to this photo. Nini kept hounding me to process it, and I too kept going back and looking at it, trying to decide if I should process it. My hesitation was that it isn’t tack sharp on Nini’s eyes and I’m not thrilled with her facial expression. But something kept drawing me in. The photo has a consistent feel to it with the gritty background, gritty makeup, gritty wardrobe, and maybe even gritty pose. So I started to think maybe the pole was also consistent with the feel of the photo. Further, I started to think the pole was enhancing the photo in the same way that shallow depth of field does, by focusing the interest on the only sharp thing in the photo, which is Nini. But I still wasn’t sure, so I looked to see if any pros are including blurry objects on one side of the frame to force the eye elsewhere. Sure enough I found several wedding photographers that do include blurry objects in their foreground in much the same way I did here (Marcus Bell, Jasmine Star, and especially Todd Laffner). The final straw was when I was watching fashion photographer Lindsay Addler on Photoshop Week on CreativeLIVE, and she was adding in blurry objects to several photos both in camera and through compositing with photoshop. I actually processed the photo while watching Lindsay on CreativeLIVE Monday night and used some of her techniques, albeit in Lightroom. Second, I asked myself whether I think the blurry pole is distracting. I knew that it was supposed to be distracting based on traditional compositional techniques, but I wasn’t sure that it actually was distracting. In fact, shallow depth of field is a common technique for removing distracting objects from the frame precisely by making them blurry. I thought about it more. What does it mean to be distracting? When the eye is drawn to a part of the photo that the photographer did not want to draw attention to. What causes distraction? Usually the eye is drawn to the brightest part of the frame, the darkest part of the frame, the sharpest part of the frame, areas of high contrast, and colors. This is why shallow depth of field and black and white is so common in portraiture, both make most compositions less distracting. Does the pole meet any of these criteria? No, it’s not the brightest or darkest part of the frame (it’s a midtone), it’s not sharp, it’s not high contrast and it’s not colorful. I decided the pole is not distracting in theory. But is it distracting in practice? I spent about 5 minutes looking at the photo in different sizes, even down to thumbnail sizes, and turning my head to and from my computer screen to see where my eyes were drawn each time I looked at it. Never once did my eyes go to that pole. I asked Nini do the same and we got the same results. Instead, I think the pole actually reinforces the vertical pattern in the background that keeps the eye moving up and down on the brightest/darkest, sharpest and most high contrast/colorful part of the photo, which is Nini. I’m glad I thought this trough, because now I’m convinced that in general, blurry, low contrast, desaturated midtones are not distracting to me. Also, by my own criteria the dark hole in the door in the background is distracting as a dark spot, so I’ve removed it. Thanks for those who suggested doing so.
Beauty, Nacogdoches TX My beautiful wife Nini in downtown Nacogdoches. For our anniversary she received a massage, hair and makeup at Julia’s salon, while I was given this photo shoot! It was fun, my wife is awesome! In this photo Nini is lit with one light, a beauty dish just out of the frame to the camera left. I like how the beauty dish looks on Nini, but I also like how it creates a natural vignette on the brick wall. Critiques are always welcome. Daily photo: February 22, 2013, taken February 3, 2013
My Shot, Nacogdoches TX I decided to jump in front of the camera after setting up these lights for Nini’s anniversary shoot. I put the camera on a tripod and pre-focused. Unfortunately I didn’t step into the right spot so that I would be in focus! Making self-portraits with shallow depth of field is always difficult. I also discovered that posing is much harder than I thought and I’m especially bad at posing for men. Yesterday was really busy for me, both at work and at home. At home we’re dealing with a lot of problems with our landlord because our house is falling apart. Hopefully they will take care of the problems or let us out of our lease without having to go to court. Critiques are always welcome. Daily photo: February 20, 2013, taken February 9, 2013
Shy Smile, Nacogdoches TX This is Nini’s favorite pose from our anniversary shoot over the weekend. The only problem was that the flash didn’t fire. The batteries were running low and the flash wouldn’t recharge very fast. But her pose was great! So she made me salvage the image in processing even though I probably would have never processed something so dark. I really like the result. There is more noise and less sharpness than I’d like, but the emotion of her pose more than makes up for what this photo lacks in technical quality. The crop is straight from camera, I’ve been practicing cropping into heads and I like it! If you missed it the other day, my favorite photo from the shoot is here. CreativeLIVE is live and FREE with Jasmine Star’s wedding photography restart. Check it out at www.creativeLIVE.com/live Critiques are always welcome. Daily photo: February 13, 2013, taken February 9, 2013
Nini in Black, Nacogdoches TX We had a busy day yesterday with our anniversary gifts. Nini had her massage, hair and makeup done at a local salon, and then I got to take her photo. The sky was perfectly overcast for the first hour or so giving us great natural light, but when we took a lunch break it got too cloudy to shoot without adding some flash. It was 60 degrees, which was perfect for me, but Nini was chilled. You can see her goosebumps in larger sizes. For this portrait Nini is lit with a single speedlite shot through a beauty dish with a grid on it. The grid helps to prevent the light from spilling too far in any direction, creating really cool light falloff that is fun to work with when you have a nice background. We shot it downtown Nacogdoches with a beauty dish on a stand, on several sidewalks and alleyways, and no one ever bothered us a bit. One of my goals was to do a wider shot like this that will look good printed in large sizes. It was a fun day! Critiques are always welcome. Daily photo: February 10, 2013, taken February 9, 2013
My Love in Black and White, Nacogdoches TX I don’t usually post the same photo twice but I was really happy with how this turned out in black and white. And I think it’s fitting since Nini and I are celebrating our anniversary today with a photo shoot. For this photo Nini was lit with natural window light. There is a big styrofoam reflector just out of frame to the camera right of Nini. I also held a 20 inch silver reflector to the right of my camera to add the catch light in her eye. She is the catch light in my eye! Critiques are always welcome. Daily photo: February 9, 2013, taken February 3, 2013
Pretty Shadows, Nacogdoches TX

My beautiful wife in the shadows! Nini spent all morning getting a massage, and her hair and makeup done, but after lunch the sky darkened quickly. I had planned to shoot with natural light but brought my lighting equipment just in case. It started sprinkling and Nini was cold, but she toughed it out in her dress and we got a few good shots before packing up and heading home.

This is the widest portrait I have of Nini or anyone else for that matter. One of the goals I had for this shoot was to make some wide portraits. My portrait gallery is filled with too many closeups and head and shoulder shots. I have two major challenges when shooting wide-angle portraits. The first challenge is finding a wide enough background that is not cluttered or distracting. The second challenge is lighting the subject without getting lights and light stands in the frame. For this series I used a speedlite beauty dish on a light stand, which is just out of the frame to the right in this photo.

Check out my other full body portrait of Nini here.

Critiques are always welcome.

Daily photo: February 28, 2013, taken February 9, 2013
portrait gallery is filled with too many closeups and head and shoulder shots. I have two major challenges when shooting wide-angle portraits. The first challenge is finding a wide enough background that is not cluttered or distracting. The second challenge is lighting the subject without getting lights and light stands in the frame. For this series I used a speedlite beauty dish on a light stand, which is just out of the frame to the right in this photo. Check out my other full body portrait of Nini here. Critiques are always welcome. Daily photo: February 28, 2013, taken February 9, 2013" href="javascript:openLB(2386062503,'',XLarge,'',1024,683);">Pretty Shadows, Nacogdoches TX My beautiful wife in the shadows! Nini spent all morning getting a massage, and her hair and makeup done, but after lunch the sky darkened quickly. I had planned to shoot with natural light but brought my lighting equipment just in case. It started sprinkling and Nini was cold, but she toughed it out in her dress and we got a few good shots before packing up and heading home. This is the widest portrait I have of Nini or anyone else for that matter. One of the goals I had for this shoot was to make some wide portraits. My portrait gallery is filled with too many closeups and head and shoulder shots. I have two major challenges when shooting wide-angle portraits. The first challenge is finding a wide enough background that is not cluttered or distracting. The second challenge is lighting the subject without getting lights and light stands in the frame. For this series I used a speedlite beauty dish on a light stand, which is just out of the frame to the right in this photo. Check out my other full body portrait of Nini here. Critiques are always welcome. Daily photo: February 28, 2013, taken February 9, 2013
Pretty Shadows, Nacogdoches TX

My beautiful wife in the shadows! Nini spent all morning getting a massage, and her hair and makeup done, but after lunch the sky darkened quickly. I had planned to shoot with natural light but brought my lighting equipment just in case. It started sprinkling and Nini was cold, but she toughed it out in her dress and we got a few good shots before packing up and heading home.

This is the widest portrait I have of Nini or anyone else for that matter. One of the goals I had for this shoot was to make some wide portraits. My portrait gallery is filled with too many closeups and head and shoulder shots. I have two major challenges when shooting wide-angle portraits. The first challenge is finding a wide enough background that is not cluttered or distracting. The second challenge is lighting the subject without getting lights and light stands in the frame. For this series I used a speedlite beauty dish on a light stand, which is just out of the frame to the right in this photo.

Check out my other full body portrait of Nini here.

Critiques are always welcome.

Daily photo: February 28, 2013, taken February 9, 2013
See photo in original gallery.
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