Portrait Session 2

I have two models coming into the studio, mother and daughter, for my second portrait session.

In order to achieve the soft dreamy look for the finished images I will be using Continous lighting as detailed in previous blogs as opposed to studio flash and lightboxes, which send out a burst of light flooding the image and resulting in hard edges and shadows.

I will be using the same camera equipment hand held, not mounted since I want to move around the studio to get a more relaxed looking shot rather than one posed and held for some time.  In order to ensure sharpness I will increase iso to around 500 to get sufficient shutter speed, my Canon 5D Mk 2 is easily capable of maintaining image quality at this level without adding 'noise' to the picture.

I will go through health and safety procedures before commencing, including pointing out fire alarms and fire exits, slip and trip hazards, hot surfaces, not interfering with any equipment and not bringing food or drink into the studio.

We will have regular breaks away from the studio during the session.

Here are some of the shots achieved straight from the camera.

Textured Landscape

All these shots were taken on my recent trip to Norfolk using Canon5D Mk2 and 24-70mm lens mounted on a tripod.

They were all shot in Aperture Priority mode at F11 with exposure bracketing, 3 shots at half stop increments.

For the second two I also used a Nuetral Density 8 filter, to ensure I had a correct exposure since the sun was burning through morning fog.

After putting the Raw files through Adobe CS5 to enhance colour and tone, I have added textures from my stock to the first two images, using the technique outlined in earlier blogs.

In order to achieve the painterly look I want for my finished portfolio, I have decided to add textures.

I find personally that a texture adds another dimension to my photography, I have to make artistic choices as to which type or colour of texture to use and judge whether this enhances or detracts from the finished image.

I find this additional input greatly rewarding and takes my images from a photographic representation of the subject to something resembling art.

Textures and Portaits

Following my portrait session in the studio I have selected images that I want to work on further.  I have spent some time applying different finishes and have decided to go with the overall theme of textured images.  I prefer a more painterly finish than the usual glossy or matt studio portrait and find using pre-maid textures, collected from the internet, gives me the look of a painting without having to invest in paints, brushes etc.

I have taken several screen grabs to illustrate the process,  this first, is the original raw files opened in 'Bridge'

After deciding which file to use, I then open up into Adobe Raw..............

where I can use the histogram to check for any clipping warnings, ie under or overexposure,  these can be corrected by using 'fill light' or 'recovery', I can also play with 'white balance' to see what effect cloudy, shade, or tungsten have on the look of the shot, or increase contrast, clarity, vibrance etc., without damaging the raw file, clicking twice on a slider brings you back to the original setting.

It is all personal preference really, and how your eye sees the picture, there are no pre set instructions as to how it should turn out, only that I would like to produce something original and pleasing to the sitter and anyone else who views the final image.

Since these shots were taken in the studio, using aperture priority, and evaluative metering, no clipping warning were present, I did not want to increase brightness or clarity because of the nature of the shots and so opened into 'photoshop' without making any adjustments.

I intend using pre-made textures on my images and have taken a sceen shot of some of them opened in a file, they are j.peg images collected from the internet.

However, before I apply a texture I make any initial adjustments needed on the file.

Since his eyes looked a little dark, after copying my background layer I used dodge and burn to lighten around the outside of his pupil and burn to darken around the edge.  This just gives a little more emphasis to his eyes without making the colour look false.

I converted the file to black and white to see how this looked then applied a red filter to brighten his skin changing the blending mode to soft light.

I chose a number of layers from my pre-made file, changing the blending mode to see what gave a nice effect and using the preview button to turn on and off different layers and the slider to adjust opacity.  I can also use the brush tool to clean away some texture from his skin.

This shot shows a texture being slid into place over the original file.

Here it is sitting on top of the image file, before  using free transform to stretch and fit the layer over my image and changing the blending mode and opacity as needed.

This shows a large brush being used to clean texture away from his skin.

In the final image I have picked a pink colour and soft brush to add pink tones back into his skin.

Here is the final image fully textured and ready to print, I decided to leave a small amount of texture on his skin since it gives the image a slightly grainy finish which I like, however,  again this is personal preference.