Senior Portraits

ghaleon109 wrote:
Thanks

That is true, but it can go either way. Some want them ever since they've been a freshman, and some couldn't care less about them. I remember I couldn't have cared less about mine

i refused to get mine done. I told my mother to just put a long haired wig on my twin... lol. sari.

When I shoot senior portraits, I found that most of my female clients like a soft focus with soft light. I did an edit of image # 4 to give you an example.

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Thanks

I have a soft-focus action in PS that I used on the print just to even the light out a little. But I asked, and she really doesn't like that doll-ish look to her photos.

Nice work Mike

Dan

How about something like this?

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My humble opinion. The exposure and skin tone looks very nice, and all in all for a first timer you did very well.

My critique. All are rather flat lit, (except # 4, this image has rather nice lighting) but at least there are no raccoon eyes and you didn't use the dreaded on camera flash unit. All of the poses are static, but since this is your first time, I would find it incredible if you did have some leaning and tilting going on. Leaning the body and tilting the head gives the image what I call 'dynamism.' When the body is posed straight up and down the poses are usually rather uninteresting boring and ho hum. Getting someone to lean their body and tilt their head can be difficult, but the images will be wonderful.

The first I do when posing someone is to turn their body 30 to 45 degrees away from the camera, or move myself so I am 30 to 45 degrees to their torso. This will prevent the straight on (football shoulders) look like she has in # 2 and # 4. In # 3 her torso is turned nicely but her hips are not which makes her hips look wide. Also in # 3 her right arm from the shoulder to the elbow looks cramped. The rest of her right arm and especially the hand looks very nice.

Keep it up, judging by these images you are well on your way to becoming an excellent high school senior photographer.

Benji

Thanks!!

I admit I definatly have a lot of learning ahead. But I see what you mean now in #2 and #4. Not very flattering, but definatly a learning experience. Thank you so much for the tips and advice

Oh, thank you everone who took the time to PP them But when I get a chance to log on to my desktop I'll post the photos that I edited and were purchased.

#2 has a background that blends into her hair and her top.

The examples of skin smoothing posted are unnatural looking and very noticeable that it was applied.

Here are the final photos. (the conversion for web doesn't look nearly nice as the prints)

those are great she should be thrilled... Sari.

I still wouldn't use the last one - background is too dark.

Even if you don't do an overly soft skin, you'd probably want to eliminate under-eye circles/bags.

I like the brightness of #1, but am not wild about the fact she is so centered.
I really like the angle of the face in #2.

Nice work.

Thanks

Yes, that is one problem I noticed. I don't really go for the overly soft skin because it just doesn't look real, however as you said there are still some problems under the eyes when you don't soften it as much.

How would you get rid of them? I've tried the Healing Brush, but I'm still not so great with PS so it never really looked right. I figure I need more practice at PP'ing, but should I use a different method?

I think you did a very nice job on these. I agree with the comments made and liked #1 and #4 the best as well.

I recently had a shoot with a girl who wants to get into print modeling, but refused to smile. When I could get a smile out of her, I thought the pictures looked better, but she didn't want to use those.

After you posted the photos that you had proccessed and she purchased, someone commented that you shouldn't use one of them. Well, unfortunately in this business the client has the final say, and they don't always pick what we would want them to. But as long as they're happy and they pay you, it's all good.

Reminds me of something I heard a little while ago "There's no wrong pose if it's what the client wants"

I'm pretty satisfyed with them. It was a beginning effort so I knew not to expect much, but I still wanted to do a nice job for the client, and I think they turned out alright. But I do have a lot to learn, so I ordered a few books and will be reading a lot before my next shoot.

Thanks!