4th senior session ever- Jeremy

Hi all,

These pics are of my younger brother actually! These are my 4th session for seniors, I did 2 more last weekend, so I hope I did a good job on them!

I edited all these in PS for acne clearing, that was quite a job, let me know if any of them look goofy. I didn't go for complete model-smoothing job, I wanted them to still look like him, just a little better than normal.

Let me know what you think, and how I can improve!

Thank You!
1.

These aren't bad. I think I'd whiten the teeth a bit though. It would be nice to have some more variety in the facial expressions too.

Personally, I think I like #4 the best... but, it is certainly more of a standard pose/look. That said, it appears that there are some random leaves falling (toward the top left of the image), which looks a bit awkward to me... it could be that the blown out area just masked the branches... but I'd probably just clone out those leaves.

I like #1 ok too... However, it appears to me that on-camera fill flash was used (??) If so, I think it would have been better if the flash were gelled to match that of the ambient light... Getting it off-camera would have also altered the location of the shadow on the post behind his head.

I'd also agree with Q-Man regarding a bit of teeth whitening... understanding that you don't want to go overboard (as you mentioned in your OP regarding the skin smoothing).

Thanks for the input!

Funny thing, I already whitened his teeth... My family has a real yellow teeth problem... even by brushing/flossing 2x a day. I don't get it. (but I digress)

Thanks for the note on the random leaves, they do look really weird! I'll clone them out as you suggested.

Good call on gelling the flash, It was on camera fill as you thought.

Anyone know a good internet-primer on gelling? I have gels, I just don't really know how/when to use them

One thing to remember regarding your flash, is that the light that it emits is daylight balanced... which is similar to that of mid-day sun. In the picture I referenced above, it is nearing sunset, which means the sun is lower in the sky and warmer in color. If you would have placed a 1/2 CTO, or possibly full CTO gel on the flash, the color of it would have more closely matched that of the sun.

If you are mixing flash with incandescent ambient light (e.g. a dining room) you also want to add some warming gel to the flash. If you are mixing with florescent light you will want to use a plusgreen gel... and possibly take other considerations such as the frequency of the ballast.

Unfortunately, I really don't know any good reference as to where to specifically read about gelling your lights, but I'd probably suggest taking a look on the Strobist blog: http://strobist.blogsp​ot.com/search?q=gel

robots4joey wrote in post #15190480
Thanks for the input!

Funny thing, I already whitened his teeth... My family has a real yellow teeth problem... even by brushing/flossing 2x a day. I don't get it. (but I digress)

Thanks for the note on the random leaves, they do look really weird! I'll clone them out as you suggested.

Good call on gelling the flash, It was on camera fill as you thought.

Anyone know a good internet-primer on gelling? I have gels, I just don't really know how/when to use them

Try this for whitening the teeth using photoshop use the lasso tool to select the teeth. Using the hue/saturation tool, select only the yellows, then desaturate.

I'd say 4 has the best pose, best outfit, least goofy expression Though his lips look a little lipsticked to me in that one. It's a decent photo, even if I'd have liked an off-cam light + umbrella camera left and high.

Perhaps it's just me, but I think the shoes signal to me that I'm seeing snapshots rather than photos. The on-cam flash does more to create this impression; the take-a-shot-from-where-I'm-standing perspective in 5 clinches it.