Captsure » Portrait

Photo of the Day

michael — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:42:18 +0000

“Canine Portrait”

I absolutely love animals and I’m definitely not shy with my love for dogs. Throughout my last

trip to India it seemed that dogs were drawn to me as well. They kept following me around

and I just loved the smile on this particular canine friend.

D700, f/2.8, 1/400, 70mm, ISO 320

Updated Model Photos from Studio Shoots

michael — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 02:32:41 +0000

Over the last few weeks I’ve been able to work with a couple great models in the studio. The objectives for the portrait shoot with Robert started out as simple headshots and portraits. After we warmed up with a few images at the infinity wall, we did some portrait shots with a different setting and from there he asked if we could try to recreate a photo he saw in a magazine. This was fun for me because I got a bit out of my comfort zone with lighting. I needed to mix ambient lighting (from a lamp as well as from the window) with some fill flash from one of the AlienBees.

This is the output from that shot:

Robert Sitting in Black Leather Chair

Click here to check out the gallery of my favorite images from my shoot with Robert.

The shoot with Kayla was very fun. She is a young, dynamic and high energy model. She’s under 18 so her parents joined her, though her father left after he met me and realized that I wasn’t a freak with ulterior motives. Her mom stayed the whole time and I just incorporated her into the process (showed her the images I made along the way, etc.).

With Kayla, I played with the lighting a bit to deviate from standard portraits and went with a more darker sort of sultry feel. Though I did quite a few with a brighter feel. Here is one of my favorite images from the shoot:

Female model with Everlast boxing gloves

Click here to see all of my favorite images from this shoot.

Studio shoot with friends

michael — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:46:20 +0000

After I received my new 24 – 70mm f/2.8 lens, I couldn’t wait to get into the studio and try it out on a few portraits. I called my friends Mark and Sarah and asked them to model for me. The biggest thing I learned from this shoot is this importance of getting your subjects to be comfortable. Sarah seemed much more comfortable in the camera and she just naturally tried different poses with little coaching. Mark on the other hand was quite stiff, especially at first. After a while I realized that when I paired the two together, Mark relaxed and we were able to get some decent shots.

In the following couple shots, Sarah appears to be relaxed and comfortable with the camera.

And now for a couple shots of the two together.

Check out the full gallery here.

More Portrait Photography

michael — Sun, 31 May 2009 23:12:06 +0000

This time I decided to try portrait photography in the studio. I’m a member of the MPLS Photo Center so I booked a two hour session and brought my volunteer model along.

I was a bit nervous at first with some of the equipment. I had never worked with lighting of any kind, but I found the AlienBees very easy to setup and use. I got everything setup at the infinity wall and started shooting.

Here are a few of my favorites, let me know your thoughts.

My entry into portrait photography

michael — Thu, 28 May 2009 01:56:18 +0000

I’ve been interested in trying out portrait photography for a little while now. Partly because I needed a decent profile/bio shot and I figured I could try it myself (you can see it by clicking the about me link above), and also because I want to take some decent portraits of my family.

I don’t own any lighting equipment and I seem to be interested in natural light, at least for the short term, so I decided to buy a couple reflector disks. I purchased one 41″ 5 in 1 SystemPro ReflectaDisk and one 22″ 5 in 1 SystemPro ReflectaDisk. I was told that the larger one would be good to diffuse sunlight, and the smaller one would be good to reflect light to pointed areas (like the face).

Overall I’m happy with the purchase of both disks. You do however need an assistant to hold at least one of the disks. I had someone hold the large disk while I held the small disk and fired the camera with my remote. It worked fairly well.

So here’s one shot that I’m pretty happy with, it’s of my niece. One basic question I have is with the composition, she’s looking to right right, out of the frame. Should she have been looking to the left?

This was shot with my Nikon D80, AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D, f/2, 1/1000, ISO 100.

Please let me know your thoughts!