Family Shoot - in the Leaves -

Pham, as for the "blown out skies", have you tried stopping down your aperture? With a 1600 and a PLM, you should be able to shoot at around f.11-13 or so at 1/125 ISO 200 or so and get really rich dark blue skies. But then again, the BG will not be blurred. It's a little different style that one of my favorite photogs, Jason Cole uses. Lots of light, and a really small aperture.

As for the "trees growing out of heads", I really despise that phrase. I really, really do. Seriously, who in their right mind will think for one second, "WTF! This poor lady has a TREE growing out of her HEAD!"
I understand it's just a figure of speech, but c'mon, when you're in a forest what'cha gonna' do?
And realistically, the average person viewing a photo looks at the subject in the foreground first and foremost, especially when the BG is blurred. Only us as photog's recognize such things, and their small nits to pick IMO, unless their just blatantly overboard with it.
[/end rant]

edit: Oh, and awesome job, as usual man!

#2 They should have it printed large!!! Great shots all ... but... #2 and the last shot are killer.

Hatch

Great shots! I like the lighting it really makes the pic. Are you using the vagabond battery pack for light? If so how does it hold up in a shoot?

S-Man wrote in post #8950943
Pham, as for the "blown out skies", have you tried stopping down your aperture? With a 1600 and a PLM, you should be able to shoot at around f.11-13 or so at 1/125 ISO 200 or so and get really rich dark blue skies. But then again, the BG will not be blurred. It's a little different style that one of my favorite photogs, Jason Cole uses. Lots of light, and a really small aperture.

As for the "trees growing out of heads", I really despise that phrase. I really, really do. Seriously, who in their right mind will think for one second, "WTF! This poor lady has a TREE growing out of her HEAD!"
I understand it's just a figure of speech, but c'mon, when you're in a forest what'cha gonna' do?
And realistically, the average person viewing a photo looks at the subject in the foreground first and foremost, especially when the BG is blurred. Only us as photog's recognize such things, and their small nits to pick IMO, unless their just blatantly overboard with it.
[/end rant]

edit: Oh, and awesome job, as usual man!

Its as simple as photography 101, compose your backround first. "Trees growing out of peoples heads" just looks horrible unless its extremely OOF and unnoticable. You want to shoot that way go for it, I was just giving the OP a "heads up" thats all and you slam me for it? Whatever..............

HasRob wrote in post #8952624
Its as simple as photography 101, compose your backround first. "Trees growing out of peoples heads" just looks horrible unless its extremely OOF and unnoticable. You want to shoot that way go for it, I was just giving the OP a "heads up" thats all and you slam me for it? Whatever..............

To me all of the trees look very OOF so they were not a bother.
I honestly don't see where they were ever a problem in these shots.


Excellent work!!

HasRob wrote in post #8952624
Its as simple as photography 101, compose your backround first. "Trees growing out of peoples heads" just looks horrible unless its extremely OOF and unnoticable. You want to shoot that way go for it, I was just giving the OP a "heads up" thats all and you slam me for it? Whatever..............

Sorry Rob,
I didn't intend to "slam" you in particular for it. I didn't even fully read most of the posts. I just saw Pham's post about explaining the "trees growing out of heads" and it made me shake my head.
Nothing personal, and I know you put it in a nice way. I was just venting a general observance of what I think is a ridiculous figure of speech.

collierportraits wrote in post #8946269
Lighting is great! If you had waited a little longer, the BGs wouldn't have been blown out quite as much. Your lighting certainly helped this but the blown out skies in the bg are distracting.

jdouglas003 wrote in post #8947274
Fun shots and good overall lighting but the background on most of these is terribly distracting to me. Trees growing out heads, blown out skies, tree shadows and such.

regards to the blown out skies: it's such an outdated photographic rule to ALWAYS avoid blown out skies. He was shooting during the day and did a great job depicting daylight. Personally, I'm tired of daytime shoots that look like they were taken at 7pm because flash/hi shutter/small aperture was used to kill all the ambient light. General public like shiny, bright, happy pictures.

Here's someone whose skies are always blown out but look great IMO. She retains the bright happy mood of daylight. Some on here dislike her but she has a huge following, so apparently the general public is not distracted by blown out skies and perhaps may prefer it if executed correctly. Try something different.
http://www.jasminestar​blog.com/index.cfm?Sta​rtRow=43

^ Wow thanks for directing me to Jasime Star's site. She's awesome. Amazing stuff. I can see why she has a huge following.

@Pnmd - thanks for that info and old rule back up.

i generally don't follow rules and i am not classically trained.. so photography 101 - 401 doesn't exsist to me..

i just shoot and balance out what i think looks best..

as for jasmine's website i can not see it here at work, but if i remember, didn't she win huge awards for wedding photography? and also her weddings are like 5K$-10K$ crazy premium west coast photographer? but her images are amazing i remembered...

thanks everybody and i mean everybody.. (people have thier perspectives and pet peeves, and i respect that, when you post a comment on my threads, that means you care enough to post something vs passing by. so i ways like to see or hear what other photogs have to say..)

thanks

phamster

Yeah, I didn't know it, but I've seen Jasmine's stuff before. She's over on OSP, and looks to be in cahoots with DJ...maybe, i'm not sure. Not that "cahoots" is a bad thing, but I'm just sayin, she's big time. And yeah, her collections start at 5500.
Wish I was that good

phamster wrote in post #8954542
@Pnmd - thanks for that info and old rule back up.

i generally don't follow rules and i am not classically trained.. so photography 101 - 401 doesn't exsist to me..
phamster

you're probably one of the most prolific photographer and poster here so I suspect from all your experience you subconsciously know the rules and can thus bend them

S-Man wrote in post #8954615
I'm just sayin, she's big time. And yeah, her collections start at 5500.
Wish I was that good

she is big time and she's only been at it 5 years. Yeah, I wish I was that good too.

phamster wrote in post #8954542
as for jasmine's website i can not see it here at work, but if i remember, didn't she win huge awards for wedding photography? and also her weddings are like 5K$-10K$ crazy premium west coast photographer? but her images are amazing i remembered...

Color me crazy, but if Jasmine is getting $5K - $10K for her shots, I am definitely getting into weddings!

I think you did a great job on these! The expressions are wonderful, and of course, we know that expressions trump pretty much everything else! You really captured the warmth and joy of this family.

Just a few nits, some of which you, the photographer, may not have total control over...

1. Clothing - I wish the family coordinated this much better. I wish the tones and styles were more cohesive. In addition, I prefer men to wear long sleeve shirts (better flow, and less distracting).

2. Lighting looks a bit harsh on a few of these, especially compared to some of your other posts I've seen. I know that the time of day when you shot was a big challenge. The harshness is something we photographers nit-pick about, but this family must be thrilled with these!

3. DOF - I know that many have commented on this issue. I do wish the dof was shallower, but sometimes this can be personal preference.

Again, very nice job on this set, and you provided this family with wonderful portraits!

Tim

Few points here:

Phamster, I for one LOVE photographing in the leaves! It really is an awesome thing to do. Yes, I grabbed a quick shot with the legs pulled out a bit. Again, not the most awesome image but hopefully this will show you what I'm talking about... Just extend their legs just a bit. I used to always tell my women, stretch those legs out a bit, thins you up, and actually it does. The longer the look, the less bunched up and thinner they look.

As to the trees, that really doesn't bother me. I think you solved this one with lighting mostly. I agree with snailman here (sorry, forgot his name) but no one says oh, look wow, that guys a treeman... BUT the point IS valid that you should stay away from that. I have done environmental portraiture for 18 years now and it is sometimes pretty impossible to keep that from happening. So, it's a good thing to know, but move forward and get the images. And that you did! Good expressions, great rapport with the subjects. Good job!

And did I mention that your lighting was really good? lol...

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Couple more points here.

One, I agree with Tim, the clothing could have been better but we can't always win that one. Just make sure you discuss it with the client and I sometimes just bring a coat/sweater along to throw over them, neutral colored if they were open to it, of course.

Secondly, I'm going to attach one more photo here, because this was a similar shoot. Had to be at X time. One member of this family was flying out and so we had no choice. This was something like 1:00 if I remember right. But I found some shade, pulled them into it and tried to find the most wooded area so as not to have the blown out skies. And yes, maybe this is personal preference, so I apologize if I keep on about this. May just be me. You can actually tell that some of the trees are trying to blow out in this one... More fill than I actually like here, but it did work... Hope this helps! (And sorry for the bad color on this image!!)

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