November 17, 2008

Texas Renaissance Festival—A Portrait Photographic Workshop

On Sunday, Barry, Cindi, Mike, Paul, Shirley, Steve and I (members of Bay Area Photo Club) went to the Texas Renaissance Festival. The festival is a wonderful opportunity to practice taking photographs of people. You have hundreds of models more than willing to help you take the best picture you can. Both people working at the festival and those visitors dressed in medieval attire are ready and willing to have their photograph taken. It is a photography workshop.

Overall, I was pleased with what I got. I took about 300 shots, have about 30-40 possible keepers and may have 8-12 worthy of showing. I should have done: a little better job of checking out my equipment before I went to the festival; got everyone’s name and email address so that I could forward them photographs; and, taken a little more time thinking through some of my shots. But, again, I was relatively pleased with what I got.

Steve and I paired up and helped each other through our shots. All my shots were with my Nikon D3 and my Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VR and most included using single Nikon SB800 Speedlight with a Photoflex Q39 softbox attached to a monopod. Steve and I would hold it for each other and fire it using my AlienBee triggers. It worked great. We generally got nice soft light and were able to move it to where we wanted it.

My first Renaissance Festival shot that I am presenting is probably Steve’s favorite. He can attest, this shot image is pretty much as it came out of the camera. I was walking up to a counter where this young lady was selling drinks. I asked her if I could take her photograph and she agreed. I leaned my camera on top of the lightbox, dialed my flash to 1/16 power and fired three shots. This is the one I like the best; her face is very evenly lighted, but there are shadows on the far side of her face where the light has fallen off which gives some depth to her face.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, 70-210 f/2.8 at 200mm, shot at ISO 200, f/2.8 and 1/180.

Post Processing: Lightroom—tweak white balance, set white and black point, and added mid-tone contrast.






5 comments:

  1. Hello Patrick!
    My shots don't come out of the camera like this! LOL

    Outstanding! I'm looking forward to more from Ren Fest!

    Cheers!
    Barry

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  2. VERY nice! Beautiful subject, wonderful soft light, great composition with her eyes on the left and her hair, hat and feathers framing her face, and a simple out of focus background. I also think the colors work well together. This is a very timeless shot, it could have been taken anytime, anywhere. I LOVE it! As Barry said, outstanding! I would like to see Craig improve THIS one --- don't think he could.

    Cindi

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  3. Beautiful. It is very hard to believe that this was not a photograph taken in a studio with every light set to the tenth degree.
    Taylor

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  4. Nice lighting and great expression. I do wish her left eye was little more in focus.
    S

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  5. I would love to see the light set up that you used to get these pix. It is very hard to believe that you only used one light and a small soft box and got these. Good job. Maybe you should hold a class on small strobes.
    Sye

    ReplyDelete