Today’s post of Crystal is my last from the BAPC portrait field trip. Before I took this shot, I knew that I wanted three things: dad was only going to be a prop, the photo was going to be about emotion and the photo would work best in black and white.
I knew that there was many things working against me getting the photo I wanted: dad was wearing a light blue shirt and Crystal was wearing a relatively bright orange shirt. Neither shirt would help me achieve what I wanted. I arranged dad’s and Crystal’s arms so that they would form a nice diagonal across the entire frame. I positioned the light to camera right and I feathered it so that it fell softly on Crystal’s face. Crystal is a natural in front of the camera. She has no hesitation about looking straight into the lens—which is exactly what I wanted—that look connects her perfectly with the viewer.
I used nik Silver Efex to convert the photo to black and white. When I took the photo, I was pretty sure that I would be able to use the red or orange filters—which act the same as red and orange filters with black and white film—to darken dad’s shirt. The filter did lighten Crystal’s shirt, but I felt that I could live with that. Overall, I pretty well got the look and feel that I wanted.
Enjoy.
Camera settings: Nikon D3x, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 shot at 70mm, ISO 200, f/9.5 and 1/60th of a second with large Elinchrom softbox to camera right and feathered slightly.
Post Processing:
Lightroom—Set black and white points, adjusted saturation of various colors, added mid-tone contrast and vignetting.
Photoshop—used nik Silver Efex Pro to convert the photo to black and white.
I like how you achieved your desired result in postprocessing. I would never had thought of doing that even though I use nik Silver Efex. Good writeup and good portrait doing what you wanted it to do.
ReplyDeleteMel
You achieved your goal. I would have never thought of the post processing method that you used to do it. Her face does seem a little over exposed on the right side. Good work.
ReplyDeleteEdward
Your composition moves my eye directly to her face. I do wonder whether you thought about doing something about the large amount of negative space in the upper right. Like this one a lot.
ReplyDeleteDebbie
Fine composition and great pose. Good portrait.
ReplyDeleteAnne
Beautiful portrait.
ReplyDeleteTed
I find the technical write up interesting but I think you did not say enough about your decision to use dad as prop. The hand gently on Crystal's shoulder says so much to the viewer. I would like a photo like this of my husband and children.
ReplyDeleteLiz