Some Family Photos for CC

[cherylynne1]

Thank you! I'm trying to be...I know the families are thrilled, but they don't know any better. I see nothing but flaws in most of my pictures. CC is great, because it makes me better, but it's always tough when it confirms my worst fears, you know?

Astronikon and Tirediron, thank you both for taking so much time for me. I have practiced with stuffed animals before, and I usually use one as a "stand-in" when I set up shots of my own kids or like in photo 3. But with the family photos, the first took place in someone's home that I didn't know and couldn't practice in advance and the second was dependent on natural light which changes from minute to minute. This is what separates the pros from, well, me. I get thrown in a new situation and I'm lost. My biggest problem is visualizing wrap. I can see where the light will hit and where it needs to be balanced, but how hard it will be and how strong the balance needs to be is a big struggle....which isn't made any easier with kids that are anxious to be done already.

I don't know. I'm starting to wonder if I should even be offering photos for free. Maybe I should step back and keep practicing for awhile. I'll have to think about it. Either way, I appreciate the feedback SO much.

 

[Derrel]

1-I would have swapped the position of the girls, the older, taller one with her father, the younger,shorter one with her mother; this would have given better head spacing. The boy's placement in the shot is not good...he is squatting...kneeling, or better yet, at standing height would have looked better. The mother's skirt is awkwardly bunched up under her, which looks not pleasing to her silhouette. Her arm is squished in a less than ideal way.Highlights have that trending-toward-yellowish-over-exposed color cast. The boy's placement in this formal group shot looks like an afterthouhght. The girls' outfits are showcased, but the boy looks like the pose was not built around them having three children. Look into formal portrait posing guides, and you'll see that the head heights could have been rectified for the four lower people, with just a simple swap of the female childrens' places. The mom/big daughter spacing is off both in height and in positioning in space... you want a half a head spacing on the eye heights in a formal shot--and this is definitely a "formal pose" type image.

The big "gap" of attention-drawing, white fireplace mantle in the center, with the boy sunk down, squatting, in to the visual notch? This is the kind of shot one needs to know how to do: FG-MW +3 MC, Family Group-Man, Woman + 3 Minor Children.

If the boy had been allowed to stand up, then you would have had a natural, downard angling head line on both sides...kind of like...a Christmas tree...with the heads all spaces "just so"...plus, we could have seen the boy's clothing, and his whole "personage".

2-I totally understand the background look you were going for; MANY younger people like that look. THe posing of the kids is cute! LOVE,love,love the arms raised expression and posture the little boy is showing. Including that low-hanging cedar tree branch on the right is a fantastic touch! What hurts this badly is the tree sprouting out of the top of Mom's head...that's a basic composing mistake in an otherwise pretty well-executed shot. I think the (overly? overtly?) negative overreaction to the background's brightness is just a refusal to accept this as a modern style, a modern "look". The people are also bright. A bit too bright I think. This is a modern way of processing images.

3. Overexpsed again, but even worse is a bad horizontal framing. This style of composition looks unstudied. Why is the baby flanked by two large empty spaces and his arms chopped off? This should be a tall pose. This is where visual sophistication comes in...this kind of framing screams "non-artist" to me. Sorry..I studied photography as fine art and drawing in college...this is not the best way to compose this type of image: my professors would have ripped me a new one on this (DID rip me new ones, actually...).

In short, some good stuff, some not-so-good stuff going on here. I used to work five days a week as a family photographer...posing formal groups is actually not that complicated, once you are exposed to the ideas of how to "place the heads" of all the people in the shot. There are resources available that go into posing family groups (books, guides) as well as individual people.

 

[cherylynne1]

Thank you, Darrel, very interesting insights.

1. I totally agree there are problems with head spacing. The boy was originally sitting, then decided to stand, squat, jump, etc! It was my intention, I completely agree that it would have looked better. The girls are actually twins, and they're the same height. I think, in looking at the photo after your comments, that the mother actually has one leg tucked under her, which I didn't notice at the time. This leads to her slouch, the girl being unnaturally high, and the bunched skirt.

2. I was so angry with myself when I got home and saw that freaking tree hat on the mom's head. It's something I know to look for and I just didn't. I'm really glad you like the idea of the shot, at least...if really like to get better at backlighting. When done well, I think it's beautiful.

3. It's interesting that you say that, because the original photo was portrait. It's here: DSC04981-2 I think I lean toward the posted version because in the original his head is slightly off-center, but not enough to look intentional, and to fix that I would have had to chop off fingers. But I think you can see that it's a altered version of the original idea, which is very perceptive, lol!!

I really appreciate your fine arts perspective, thank you so much!!

 

[Derrel]

You had the shot of the baby correct, As-Shot...all it needed was a tiny crop off the bottom, and a bit larger crop off of the top. The original framing was better, and more logical. A 1.5 degree counter-clockiwse rotation of the original vertical image would have been perfect, and maintained the original As-Shot, "portrait" orientation. His body pose makes him taller than he is wide, ergo the natural and expected framing is a vertical. This is a basic principle of composition and close-up portraiture, going back hundreds of years. If he were shown lying down on a baby posing beanbag, stretched out, reclining, a horizontal would be the natural and expected framing, since he would be shown wider than he is tall.

As far as a small boy who is hard to control: put him on his daddy's lap...issue solved. That eliminates him squatting or moving around constantly, being under direct control of a parent. He's the youngest, and the most prone to being squirrely. That way one of the girls could have been standing, showing off the matching outfits, head-to-toe...outfits that either Mom or Grandma, or Mom and Grandma went shopping for expressly for that photo session.

I agree about the bright,k airy backlighted look: it is a new trend in family photos, gaining momentum. I like it, especially in climates where there is lots of bright, summery lighting and it looks "fairly normal" to have intense light outdoors.

 

[cherylynne1]

You are completely right about a slight rotation, that would really help! Thank you! And the information about the layout is really helpful. Maybe what I really need is a fine arts class...most photography classes I've seen are sort of focused on "Here's how to use Aperture Mode" etc., and only touch on the basics of composition. I think a class focused on the art might be really helpful.

In another photo where the family is standing, the boy is being held and the girls are standing and showing off the outfits...but the highlight/shadow ratio is even worse, and they ended up even more off-center from the fireplace. I just can't really get anything right. The girls kept running away too, that's why they ended up on laps in the first place. The whole photo shoot really felt like a game of Whack-a-Mole, lol! It's a great family, just very active, strong-willed children.

I would really love to do back lit portraits like Jake Olsen or Elena Shumilova, but of course they have a heavy amount of Photoshop to keep their backgrounds. I'm just scratching the surface of Photoshop at the moment, and swapping heads is about as complicated as I get. I did purchase Jake Olsen's tutorial, which was great, but I had to wonder whether a correctly placed flash or reflector might have cut his workload in half....if so, I think that could definitely be my style.

 

[Derrel]

SNIP...

I had to wonder whether a correctly placed flash or reflector might have cut his workload in half....if so, I think that could definitely be my style.

One of the secrets to making workflow easier is to light things with electronic flash which is NOT especially close to the subjects, because at longer flash to subject distances, the rate of light falloff across the frame is negligible.

There are so,so many people who really do not fully, as in fully, understand some of the most basic laws of lighting, and they follow or repeat common Internet-era myths, like "Always use a large light source," or "Always put the light close to the subject, so the light is softest." Those are half-truths. Also, nonsense like, "You need at least a 60-inch umbrella to light a family group."

When a light is too close, the fall-off rate is huge across the width of a horizontal frame... moving the light BACK, farther away, equalizes the light across the width of a horizontal frame, so you have even light, even exposure, without the need to burn down (or exposure correct and the dodge) every stinking image, frame by frame in post...

I'm not sure why your exposures are so "hot"...I'd address that issue. I think you'll get better if you can get some good instruction on how to do what you want to do. But be careful of who you get information from, especially on-line from self-taught people who might not really be able to handle in the field lighting as much as they do one-off photos, singles, spending an hour or more per image; that's not the way to make any money in family photography. There's a big difference between digital imaging and doing family photography sessions. Being a photographer is not the same as being a digital imaging specialist, but a LOT of what we see today on the Internet and YouTube is about digital imaging, which is very processing-intensive and therefore very labor-intensive.

 

[vintagesnaps]

It looks like you need to spend time becoming more proficient with your camera. That could be just out and about taking pictures - learn how to get proper exposures in various lighting conditions (indoors, outdoors, sunny, cloudy, etc.). As others have said, go practice with a teddy bear, go take pictures of a tree, anything - maybe if you have friends or family who want to tag along and pose just for fun that could be a way to get in some practice.

How can you do work in anything really until you have developed the necessary skills? You seem to have good ideas but it seems like you need to develop your skills with the technical aspects of photography.

 

[Shades of Blue]

Thank you so much, Braineack. I was getting pretty discouraged. I really appreciate the encouragement!!

Don't get discouraged! Remember too, photography is subjective. I recently took shots that a client loved that I hated. If it looks good to you, the artist, then chances are others will like it too. I think your composition is great, and I like #1 and #3. Here is the catch on #2....did the people in the photo like it? If so, guess what...YOU WIN!!!