This is baby A's big sister A. I did not know there were siblings (and a 2 year old at home!) until she came along on the shoot with her brother. So, I was not prepared to entertain her but have been acquiring some props and had a few toddler-sized tutus, some scarves, some Mardi-Gras beads, and then she found the wings that I had originally gotten for my dog when Maggie was in a pet therapy group and had to dress up for Halloween. Big Sister A is actually 5 but pretty small for her age so she could fit in a few things and she was just too darling to ignore so while her brother was taking a break I took a few shots of her --- totally undirected by me, she just naturally put herself in some darling poses (maybe she has had practice?). I know my focus is not sharp on her face in this one, but I love her expression. I hope to get another chance to photograph her and will be ready with a better set up the next time.Camera info: Nikon D200, 50mm 1.8 lens at f1.8 and 1/60th, ISO 100, cloudy whitebalance, SB800 in softbox at 1/128th power
Post processing: Curves layer for contrast, the Edge for global sharpening, Bring out the Eyes action, Touch of Light action on face, Creamsickle from Kubota to lighten and brighten but masked off skin, merged layers and lightened undereye area with clone brush in lighten mode, highpass filter, Bleacher action by Kubota at 25% opacity
Beautiful shot Cindi!
ReplyDeleteHer expression is wonderful and your lighting and composition are really well done!
Congratulations on a fantastic shot!
Barry
I see why you say that you do not like photographing people--reason: you do not want to drive the rest of us out-of-business.
ReplyDeleteI really like your setting so that you have shallow depth of field (f/1.8), ample ambient lighting (1/60th of a second) and a little soft fill (SB800 in softbox at its lowest setting 1/128). I wish I knew more about all the actions that you ran on the photo, but I do not and therefore, I cannot tell how much of an effect they have on the photo. I do think your set-up is what really produced such a fine photo.
Sister A is a natural. Her pose is great. You got her under contract?
Well, children are really more like puppies than people so I do enjoy photographing them, just not adults. But thanks to you (Larry) I have pushed myself out of my comfort zone and am getting a little more comfortable with the older group too. Tomorrow I will post the un-edited SOOC shot of the big sister so you can see how much post processing was done --- most of those actions I used are basically levels adjustments that I paint in to what I think looks good. I definitely need to get my exposures better in-camera, but in my defense this set up was for the baby who was really in a different part of the bed and I did not change anything when the sister plopped down there.
ReplyDeleteCindi, the lighting is great! You are doing such a great job with setup...I cannot imagine that you have to run many actions on these!!
ReplyDelete