I Don't Shoot People....But The Camera Just Went Off!

[AndrewMcD]

I resolved this year to try shooting more images of people, something I'm not very comfortable with. I was reviewing some images in the camera after my wife and I had been for a walk on the beach. I looked up and the sunlight was on her face......I had to raise the camera and shoot. The only processing was to reduce highlight glare on her face and raise the shadows a bit to better reveal her hair. I use Lightroom 5 for processing and any suggestions for processing techniques for this photo and future people images would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Andrew

[IzzieK]

This will be Manfred's department...

[Shadowman]

You'll find hundreds of tutorials on portrait photography, most will suggest using softening techniques in post processing. The big no-no during the image taking stage is never have the sunlight shining on your subject's face or you'll get the squinting look as you did in this image.

[Manfred M]

Andrew – I don’t think this shot really works all that well. That’s easy to say; let me analyse the shot a bit to tell you where I am coming from.

The light hitting the face is much too harsh; your subject is squinting (not generally something that you want) and the shadow cuts right across her forehead, creating a line underneath her hair, which looks quite strange. Harsh sunlight and portraits hardly ever work all that well. Frankly, not something that can be fixed in post.

I find that a one stop difference in light across the face usually works well; but when you get more extreme than that, the lighting ends up being a lot more dramatic, and only works in very specific circumstances. Light shadows falling across a face are desirable, as they add dimension to the face, but this requires care in posing and is not going to happen that often in casual shooting or street photography

I find that one really needs a much softer and more diffuse light, especially when dealing with women and children. Shoot in a shaded area and if you are near a white wall; that can sometimes act as a light source. A touch of harsh light on the hair sometimes works well; but it never works on the face.

Another consideration is the composition; I find that portrait framing usually works better; but I find that asymmetrical positioning in landscape, especially if the background complements that approach can work really well. In the case of this image, having the subject in the middle of a shot in landscape format would not be my first choice.

Thre is a fair bit of material on portraiture; but much of it deals with more formally posed shots, where the photographer chooses the time and location to get the lighting conditions he or she wants. While the principles still apply; you are not shooting with scrims, reflectors, strobes with an assistant to work with you.

[AndrewMcD]

Thank you Manfred for such a well thought out response, just the sort of information I am in need of. The heart of the matter, as you may have guessed from the image presented, is that I am not much interested in formal portraiture such as one might do in a studio. The image presented was a spur of the moment opportunity that provided the motivation to think a bit more about the proper way of taking pictures of people. You have provided some very useful information for me to consider as I try to shoot people in informal settings.

Andrew

[kdoc856]

Hi, Andrew. You snapped the shot, because something in your photographer's eye was triggered, and you snapped within the context you had at the time. Very difficult conditions, but still you saw something, and it often pays to take a good hard look toward what that trigger may have been before you toss the image.

B&W can sometimes beautifully even out exposure and tone difficulties, and lives with noise much better than color (obviously not a problem here). I thought your shot was well worth a salvage attempt, so I had a quick play with it in LR5 and PS, evening out the tonal gradients and adjusting texture, before popping it into SilverEfex Pro 2. See what you think. I'll happily take it down if you'd rather not get unsolicited edits- I just didn't think I could explain my thoughts in any intelligible way.

Cheers,

Kevin

[AndrewMcD]

Kevin,
Thanks very much for giving me another way of thinking about the image. I'm fine with your edit as the whole point of this thread was to help me think about the skills and techniques used in taking photographs of people. You, John and Manfred all see to have grasped the idea that it's candid shots of people, done on the spur of the moment that I'm interested in learning to do properly. I've recently ordered a couple of books on digital Black and White that Mike recommended in another thread so hopefully I'll also be developing some confidence in doing the B&W conversions.
Thanks again,
Andrew

[Digital]

Andrew, I too am interested in informal candids of people as well as more formal portraits.


Bruce

[Pohled]

Hi,

I liked it because it's clear but real. I mean, with so much "fake" pictures over there, with people without any sign of age, it's good to seem a nice and real picture of a 50+ person.

The shadow-light thing added a plus in my opinion too.