STICKY:  How to photograph a high school Senior - Part 2

No editing yet but this was a fun quick 30 minute shoot with Olivia. I did some of her last summer as well.
Green is for her high school and the Orange for UT Austin where she's going this fall.

And here are a couple edited ones.

LSU? Nice! My alma mater. I'm not quite a sports freak but I used to be on the field for every football game taking photos for the LSU yearbook, the "Gumbo" when I was a senior there many years ago. Seems like another lifetime.

Regarding your photos, nice job overall. Couple of things I'd suggest thinking more about are how the background relates to the subject and the hardness/softness of the main light. Since you asked for critique, I'll be very picky.

In your first photo there seems to be a dark band running horizontally across the middle of the photo caused by the light falloff in the woods behind your subject. The top and bottom are lighter because they are catching light before it decreases in intensity inside the wooded area. This tends to pull the viewer's eye away from your subject and away from the center of the photo. If you wanted to fix, you could either compose differently, or dodge the dark areas and burn the light edges. If you'd care to take a look at some of the stuff in my gallery, I think there are some examples of picking a background that draws the viewer's attention to the subject.

My second issue is the light in the second photo. From the shadows on your son's face, it seems this photo was taken on a clear day while the sun was pretty high in the sky. I'd guess probably sometime between 10am and about 2 or 3pm. That's generally not very flattering light for portraits. In this case, it puts both eye sockets in shadow and causes other dark, sharply defined shadows on his face. The fix: shoot earlier or later in the day, within about an hour or so of sunrise or sunset; shoot on more overcast days when the light is softer; use fill flash to lighten the harsh shadow; or shoot backlight and use flash to fill the face.

Final minor point, the background in the second photo is a bit busy and detracts from your subject. You've done a nice job putting the background out of focus. But ideally I'd want to see more separation. If you decrease the contrast of the background so the darks are not quite so dark, it would make your subject stand out better.

Nice job. Good luck!

Thank you very much. We really didn’t plan on going until the last minute. It was in the afternoon, but extremely overcast. We stopped in the Bonnet Carre Spillway, which is very close to our home. With all this virus stuff going on, we didn’t venture very far. Really looking forward to doing more of these, as we have plenty of friends looking for a low-priced alternative in this messed up economy.

I’ll post more as I take them.

Thanks again.

I tried out my first "multiplicity" photo for this senior a few weeks ago...

A couple of Sydney, graduate of Athens High School here in Texas.

A lil "cap n gown" session yesterday....

Saw this this morning on Today. He’s really good and did a great thing!

I took about half the stray hairs out of this one. Not a fan of the harsh back lighting and soft images but what a client wants they get.

rjharris wrote in post #19031100
And here are a couple edited ones.

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The orange smoke in the background is awesome.

Feeling really bad for the Class of 2020, but we made the best of a shoot the two days before finding out NJ schools will remain closed. Jared is heading the the Air Force Academy after graduation and is an awesome young man.

Just a couple more.

rjharris wrote in post #19057863
I took about half the stray hairs out of this one. Not a fan of the harsh back lighting and soft images but what a client wants they get.

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forum: People

Have to admit, I'm with you on the harsh back light and soft image...... However, I really think this one ROCKS!!! Well done!