# Britney Spears



## Village Idiot (Jun 2, 2010)

First off, I think after receiving my 5D MKII back from Canon, the micro adjust settings got reset with everything else and now I'm back to front focusing again. Her face is a bit soft, which I was focusing on, but the foreground is sharp.

I had a friend of mine acting as an assistant and standing in the water to the left with a Canon 580EX II on a light stand with a shoot through umbrella.

I originally though that the location had hard ground and sand, but after coming down off the bridge, we find out it's nothing but semi not completely soft mud and grass. The four of us that were in on this ended up walking up the stream almost a 1/4 mile to the rocks and that was a stretch in itself. the girl assisting in the water was in water up to a bit above mid calf and under the water was mud that did nothing but suck you in. It was definitely ideal conditions, so once she was positioned with the light stand, I couldn't get her to move much farther. This really impacted the shoot because the umbrella is directly out of the right of the frame, which meant that I couldn't get the empty space in that direction like I wanted.

This is probably the best I came up with. 

The girl on the rock is a local musician. I've been trying to gear my portrait portfolio to musicians as that's the industry I'm trying to get into. There wasn't a lot of direction here and the glare kind of shows off the personality of her music. She has a rough bluesy voice and style of play, so that was the idea behind be not telling her to sit pretty and smile.

I do think the best thing about shooting at 7:30 in the evening is the amazingly warm natural color you get from a sun starting to set directly behind you.

Well, that's all the excuses I can make for now. Have at it.


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## ifi (Jun 2, 2010)

It is a nice shot. I could not tell how difficult it was for you to compose this shot without reading your post, especially holding the light in water part. Is that water under her feet or shadow? Seems like you managed to acheive what you were trying.


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## ivomitcats (Jun 2, 2010)

I like everything about the photo except what the girl's wearing. It looks like her dress is a parachute


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## Village Idiot (Jun 2, 2010)

ivomitcats said:


> I like everything about the photo except what the girl's wearing. It looks like her dress is a parachute


 
Totally not what I was expecting her to show up in.


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## Derrel (Jun 2, 2010)

The shot just isn't working for me...she's positioned mostly dead center in the frame, with a very slight bit of extra space on the left for her to look into. but I cannot really "see" her face very well. The photo seems to be taken from too far away, or she's too small in the frame, compared to the background--there's no real feeling of visual engagement with her...she's small, looking away from the camera, and the background focus sort of competes with her. It just doesn't quite come together for me. Maybe if she were larger in the frame it would help. It sounds like it was a major PITA just getting to the location due to weather/terrain issues,and the time of day does indeed have really sweet light, so you're to be commended on those two points.

I think the tree trunks at the top are distracting. I held my hand up to the screen and cropped out the tree trunks, and I think the shot works better with just a plain, grassy lake shore above her.


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## EFHATCH1990 (Jun 2, 2010)

I agree with Derrel, to centered and to far away. I do like the lighting I think if you reshot and changed those two things above it would be an awesome photo :thumbup:


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## Sbuxo (Jun 2, 2010)

Her name's Britney Spears? :scratch:  Or was that just the hook? =


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## ivomitcats (Jun 3, 2010)

Perhaps a closer crop would work a bit. There's some room to cut off the top of the photo and both sides.


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## JasonLambert (Jun 3, 2010)

As Darrel said,  the background competes with her. The only other thing I see is that she should have cleaned the mud off of her shoes and legs.


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## PerfectlyFlawed (Jun 3, 2010)

Brittany spears? :/


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## Village Idiot (Jun 3, 2010)

:meh:


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## Village Idiot (Jun 3, 2010)

well, since no one ever visits the gallery sections since everyone post in the noob forum, you gotta do something to get some views.

Here's the other. I don't like the tilt though. I was just trying it with following the guitar's neck as the horizon.





The whole idea for the location though was to include the location into the shot. Doesn't help that some one borrowed my 17-40 and hadn't brought it back yet...


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## Derrel (Jun 3, 2010)

I like the more defocused background in this second photo; I'd estimate that the background is about twice as defocused as it is in the longer-view shot. It's clear enough that she's in a natural location near water--we can see the water and the shoreline, so the suggestion of background is enough in this second photo.


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## mwcfarms (Jun 3, 2010)

I think you should edit out the tatt's on her hands lol. They keep drawing my attention. They dont go at all with her emotion, location, dress etc. I like the second shot much better because its closer and the background isnt competing at all with her. Love the lighting in both pics.


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## Village Idiot (Jun 7, 2010)

The Brenizer Method Explained With Directions  Bui Photography &#8211; San Francisco & Bay Area Artistic Wedding Photography

That might have worked...


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## Derrel (Jun 7, 2010)

Village Idiot said:


> The Brenizer Method Explained With Directions  Bui Photography  San Francisco & Bay Area Artistic Wedding Photography
> 
> That might have worked...



There's more than one way to achieve shallow DOF with a moderately wide angle of view in a single frame...Mr. Brenizer could be shooting 4x5 sheet film and getting the effects he wants in one, single frame, instead of taking 50 small-format digital captures with a medium telephoto set to f/1.4.

For this lakeside shot, could you maybe have used FP synch, a higher ISO level, and a wide-aperture like f/2.8? The flash is not on the camera, so you could have backed the camera up and used a longer focal length lens and a wide aperture to sublimate the background's focus.

Increasing format size from 24x36 to 6x6 to 6x7 to 6x9 to 4x5, 5x7,or even 8x10 is the fastest, most direct way to get shallow depth of field with equivalent angles of view. Most of the old fantastic album cover art was shot on the apropos 6x6 rollfilm format...perfect proportion (square) and shallow DOF.


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## Sbuxo (Jun 7, 2010)

i love how we never got the Britney Spears explanation.:er:


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## Sebastian Riel Ph. (Jun 7, 2010)

Sbuxo said:


> i love how we never got the Britney Spears explanation.:er:



  I agree I clicked on this thread only to be betrayed. It's not the first time mind you... lol.  Your second image is better, there, I kept it positive....


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## Village Idiot (Jun 8, 2010)

Sbuxo said:


> i love how we never got the Britney Spears explanation.:er:


 


Village Idiot said:


> well, since no one ever visits the gallery sections since everyone post in the noob forum, you gotta do something to get some views.


 
I love how you did. :er:


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## lunaaa (Jun 8, 2010)

i love the mood the photo creates. makes you wanna sit at the same spot she is sitting at


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## Sbuxo (Jun 8, 2010)

i love how everyone is loving things.
and yea, so betrayed but I like the hippie mood to it. [:


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## AlexL (Jun 10, 2010)

1. No Britney Spears
2. Why would I click to see Britney Spears!?!
3. Wow, that Brenizer method sounds very interesting. I think I'm going to try that out sometimes.
4. You need to crop the photo


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## Sbuxo (Jun 11, 2010)

AlexL said:


> 1. No Britney Spears
> 2. Why would I click to see Britney Spears!?!
> 3. Wow, that Brenizer method sounds very interesting. I think I'm going to try that out sometimes.
> 4. You need to crop the photo


I only clicked to see "Britney" hoping it wasn't a paparazzi shot but an actual photoshoot meaning he had connects with celebrities like thaaaat.


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## dak1b (Jun 12, 2010)

i personally think it cud use a little more light...


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## Browncoat (Jun 12, 2010)

Village Idiot said:


>




In the first photograph, I think your subject gets lost in the woods (pun intended).  To me at least, it looks like a posed studio shot with a fake backdrop.

This second pic, however...I really like.  It's much more convincing.  Here she looks like a true musician, and you just happened to stumble across her playing a tune.  This photo has a very earthy feel with the colors and I think it conveys a lot of emotion, which by the looks of her, probably also comes across in her songs.

Oh...and leave the tattoos.  They tell a story.


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## Steve Reddin (Jun 13, 2010)

Hi,

On the first image, as previously stated, I'd agree with the framing. Overall it looks like an image where the photographer was cautious about getting too close to the subject, I know you wanted to shoot with the surroundings as part of the photograph, but it's very hard to do this successfully as you are shooting half way between a landscape and a portrait, and more often than not the image ends up halfway between them as well without achieving either. I'd be tempted here to shoot this as square rather than landscape, or just crop it left and right into square format, it already strikes me as a CD cover style shot and I think would work better in this format. On a side note there's a white mark on the guitar, I'm not sure what it is but it should be cloned out, it's fairly prominent, as are the marks on her leg. These erroneous items should be dealt with before the image is shown to anyone, it shows a lack of attention to detail on your part, something that will go strongly against you in a portfolio.

The second image is very good, but also a bit dark for me and too warm; her arm looks artificially tanned. One of the key rules not to break (for me anyway) in portrait work is never to cut at a joint, here the image has been cut at her right knee and the result is awkward. I'd bring the cropping up more and cut at the calf of her left leg.

Steve


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## Derrel (Jun 13, 2010)

Here you go...

The Britney Spears Picture 276


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## c.cloudwalker (Jun 13, 2010)

I agree with most of what was said about the first image. "Most" because I would like to know what the image is for before I say more about the composition. The way I look at it, it could be nice on a vinyl album cover (squared up some, cropping most of the right up to her) but it just wouldn't work on a cd cover.

Now, my main problem with it has nothing to do with composition. My first reaction was: wrong angle for her face shape. My second reaction was that she doesn't look very happy, she's looking away from her music and that is not something to see in a musician's photo. A musician should be involved in their music and should be happy. In my book. And, yes, there are many books out there.

One of the best concerts I attended was one by Peter Frampton when he made it big mainly because it was obvious the guy was enjoying himself. And happiness is contagious. The public does not get the hard work that goes into being a musician. The public thinks that you are lucky to make a living being a musician. And so, you should look happy. In your photo, she doesn't.

Kate Bush is a great example of a musician/artist with a very dark side to her who still shows a happy face when in public which includes album covers, posters, etc.

Also, you say you were surprised by what she decided to wear. You shouldn't have been because there is no reason for you to assume she is going to wear what you think looks good on her. When I shoot people, I always ask them to bring a few different sets of clothes... And if it's an outdoor shoot, I'll provide a way for them to change without getting naked in public.

The second shot is better in some ways but not so good in others. Don't like the tilt any more that you do and I sure don't don't like her eyes being closed.

All that being said, good luck with your photography of musicians. It is not easy.


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## c.cloudwalker (Jun 13, 2010)

I forgot one thing. DO NOT Photoshop out the tats. They are part of her no matter what some people think. Wouldn't she feel weird/stupid if someone showed up at a concert and asked how come she didn't have any tats in her last photo?


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