Jason and Jessica

linarms wrote in post #2388482
Picturecrazy I really like the first image ... hope you don't mind me asking how you lit it? And/or how much PP you used? Really nice work there.

The first pic? Glad you like it.
Post process was pretty basic... all that was added was a vignette during the RAW workflow. I set exposure for the sky... otherwise the sky would just turn out completely white. You'll notice the grass and fence (this was just her mom's backyard) are quite underexposed as a result. I like it that way, it adds a lot of emphasis on Jessica. Then I had a slave flash to my left fired with a pocketwizard and an assistant with a 36" reflector on my right.

It was a darn cold day though... about 6 degrees C (43F) and windy. She was such a trooper.

I agree, Art. Get them printed and give them to the couple as a gift. Some nice emotion showing there.

Arnie1 wrote in post #2389260
Art, I think these pictures would all look better in black and white.

That thought did cross my mind. I will give it a shot.

picturecrazy wrote in post #2389290
I agree, Art. Get them printed and give them to the couple as a gift. Some nice emotion showing there.

I'm going to do that. Now I just have to decide how I want to go about it.

Art

picturecrazy wrote in post #2389290
The first pic? Glad you like it.
Post process was pretty basic... all that was added was a vignette during the RAW workflow. I set exposure for the sky... otherwise the sky would just turn out completely white. You'll notice the grass and fence (this was just her mom's backyard) are quite underexposed as a result. I like it that way, it adds a lot of emphasis on Jessica. Then I had a slave flash to my left fired with a pocketwizard and an assistant with a 36" reflector on my right.

It was a darn cold day though... about 6 degrees C (43F) and windy. She was such a trooper.

Nice work ... I suspected you'd used a reflector and/or an off-camera flash ... but you used both!! Hehe.

If she was so cold, I suspect you wouldn't have had much time to figure out your flash power (since you lose E-TTL with PW's)... how did you do it? (I know this should be a basic question, but the pro I'm learning off doesn't do much of this stuff so I'm trying to pick up techniques wherever I can ).

ummm, gosh, after doing it so many times you just get to know what power to set your flash to in order to expose properly. When dealing with a super bright sky I find I'm usually setting my 430EX to about 1/1 or 1/2 power, depending on distance... about 1/250 ISO100 F11 - 22 is the typical settings. I think in this case I used F/14.

So just take a guess (and you get better at it after doing it a few times) and then you can probably adjust aperture or move the flash closer/further to fine tune. Getting the darn flash onto the light stand is what takes the longest. lol...

Well I took Curtis suggestion to try a different crop and Arnie1's suggestion to convert to B&W. Here are two of them. I used Gradient Map for the B&W conversion and adjustment with levels and contrast. Hopefully someday I'll master B&W conversion since I love B&W photos.

Art

Those are even better than the color Art. Nice.

Nice work, Art!

cdi-ink.com wrote in post #2393571
Those are even better than the color Art. Nice.

Thanks cdi for your kind words.

Curtis N wrote in post #2393959
Nice work, Art!

Thanks Curtis, really appreciate that.

Art

WoW! Art! I really love these! great job! you better not show these to very many people or you will have more people asking for you to do wedding photography

The pics were great to start with (I love it when emotion is captured like that!) but the edits you just posted are FABULOUS!!!
Your cousin will absolutely love those.

Looks much stronger in black and white. Nice!

kathy.patterson wrote in post #2401654
WoW! Art! I really love these! great job! you better not show these to very many people or you will have more people asking for you to do wedding photography

LOL! Thanks Kathy! I'll just ask them for an outragoeus amount of money and they will go somewhere else

cfpackerfan wrote in post #2402319
The pics were great to start with (I love it when emotion is captured like that!) but the edits you just posted are FABULOUS!!!
Your cousin will absolutely love those.

Thanks cfpackerfan. Really appreciate that.

Arnie1 wrote in post #2402600
Looks much stronger in black and white. Nice!

Thanks Arnie1. And thanks for the idea of B&W.

Art

Arty awesome series of shots

Stevie@JC wrote in post #2414149
Arty awesome series of shots

Thanks Stevie! Always nice to hear from you. Hope your recovery is coming along and on time.

Art