Prospective Portrait of my Daughter

[rpcrowe]

My how time flies... My daughter just reminded me that it has been ten years since I shot the portrait that she uses on her business website and her business oriented Facebook page. Although she is still a beautiful lady, she has matured a bit between 28-years old and 38-years. She thinks that this would show her in the best possible way...

I promised to shoot another portrait and I am seriously considering using paramount or butterfly lighting which I think will be great to accentuate her natural good looks but, which should show her maturity but minimize the impact of ten years.

I don't have a beauty dish for the main light source but, I am considering the use of a shoot through umbrella from relatively high over the camera with a smaller fill light to camera left. I plan on using several different colored backgrounds (including a green so we could use a green screen effect if desired) and plan to light the BG with a third light.

The other way I plan to shoot her image is outdoors in late afternoon with my daughter on the West (Coronado) side of San Diego Bay and with the skyline of San Diego in the background. The name of her company is San Diego Human Resource Consulting, so the skyline in the background should be appropriate.

[Manfred M]

I've always shot Paramount lighting with a medium softbox, not a beauty disk. I'd be a bit worried about the light spill from an umbrella, especially in shoot-through mode. I'd try it without a fill light, because that will wipe out the "butterfly" under the nose. If you really need some fill light, why not get her to hold a white reflector on her lap to push a bit of fill light back into the neck and face areas.

I'm not sure that you are going to get a meaningful looking skyline if you are doing a headshot, so I would probably not do the outdoors shot.

[rpcrowe]

The shoot through umbrella image left reduces the spill from this unit...



I do have a couple of softboxes which I can play with also....

[IzzieK]

I will await your decision on what set-up you mean to use and the image too...would be interesting...Is this daughter of yours the married one?

[rpcrowe]

Izzie... Yep my one and only daughter is married and luckily lives only about twenty miles from us. She and her hubby have adopted Tucker to live with them and their other dogs...

[IzzieK]

Aww...Tucker looks so cute there...just wished you did not pose them behind that wall with that black thing behind her head... Like as if I won't do the same...