"School of Portraiture" - Lesson 01 - Backgrounds / Locations

[Colin Southern]

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Oks, I'm rushing a bit here! But better to get something up than nothing

The sun was actually behind me for this shot, which isn't what was stated in the first lesson, but it was behind clouds. The problem this caused was that I didn't have much directional light to use. Hence the eye area seems a bit too dark!
Shot was taken on a tripod but I did notice some movement when I depressed the shutter button because the camera was at hanging at 90 degs so I'll use a cord next time.

No real PP on this shot as I wanted it "As shot" as much as possible. (Dont tell the missus)

Hopefully will get more time tomorrow to give it 100%, sorry this is only a quick effort Colin.

Hi Richard,

If it gets you thinking about backgrounds then any effort is a good effort! Just a quick thought with regards to posing; I see you have a hand rail available .. sometimes if works quite well to have your model lean forward and "slouch" over the rail while you take the shot. Also, with regards to the background, if you can choose something that's a bit darker, then so much the better.

[Wirefox]

Colin, what a superb idea and most generous of you to give up your time (and techniques) to do this. I will be following this closely.

Steve

[Colin Southern]

Colin, what a superb idea and most generous of you to give up your time (and techniques) to do this. I will be following this closely.

Steve

You'd better pay attention then - 'cause I've already posted Lesson 02

[jerryeisner]

Hi guys, i love the advice on the locations for portraiture. However, i would like Colin to address lighting in a more broad perspective rather than to simply say that the background and the subject should be in shade but with sun close by. That could become misleading if you have not been there or done that with a model before. Also sun CAN be helpful when used properly so we can't just rule sun out completely. One example is that most pros will shoot with sun behind the subject for backlighting. Other pros will shoot in sun using fill flash and will do very well by balancing the light and shade. think of all those street portraits with harsh sun that bring out great bone structure. so i appreciate the simplicity for the sake of a tutorial to tell people that this shade / open shade type of shooting is a very good place to start. However, i think we need to remind ourselves to OBSERVE all the LIGHT around us and if it looks good to us then we should try it out and see if we can discover something new and different at least for us. I think it is important to listen to Colin's advice and at the same time realize that this is one great technique out of many for finding a good light source. JE

[Colin Southern]

Hi guys, i love the advice on the locations for portraiture. However, i would like Colin to address lighting in a more broad perspective rather than to simply say that the background and the subject should be in shade but with sun close by.

Hi Jerry,

Welcome to CiC - great to have you with us

Just wondering if you've read the next two lessons in the series yet? (where I deal a bit more with light).

My approach with these lessons is to start with the basics - get folks to master those - and only then add "more bricks to the wall"; case in point - backlighting. I take a lot of backlit shots, but then again, I've got all the gear to do it ... I suspect that if I introduced that here, we'd quickly be dealing with silhouettes rather than portraits in the traditional sense of the word at this stage - so hopefully something we'll get to if the interest is there.

[jerryeisner]

thanks Colin, you are a good teacher. You also prefaced your remarks in Lesson I by stating that you were only going to concentrate on that one particular skill. So I applaud that. thanks for your nice reply. Jerry

[Colin Southern]

Lesson 2 continues here.

I'm closing off the earlier lessons now so that we don't have too many to keep an eye on all at once ... you'll always be able to join in on the latest lesson (and we hope that you do!).