Our assignment was to take portraits in natural lighting. It proved to be quite difficult with the bipolar weather. It was difficult to find shady spots that didn't have many sun patches showing through the trees. However, when I did find spots with good lighting, the photos came out pretty well. Overall, I am very happy with and proud of these photos.
You can never go wrong with using a candid laughing photo. Especially if your model is leaning against a cool tree.
This photo was a little harder to get. The sun was shining directly over the wall he is sitting against into the lens. I have a lot of the same photo with lens flares. Once I realized there were sun flares, I used my hand as a makeshift lens cap to try to reduce it. Overall, I am very proud at how this one came out.
I love that you can see all the scratches on the tree very clearly in this photo. I also like that this was a candid face of Ryan when he saw one of his buddies walking through the hall.
Ryan has some of the best facial expressions ever. This is when I told him to look off to the side and use a "different" facial expression.
Tips and Tricks:
- choose a pretty and well lit background
- compliment your model
- take more photos than you think you need
- change up the poses and facial expressions
- talk through the shoot, it will make you and the model more relaxed
- or play music to lighten up the mood a little
- experiment with different angles
- know your camera!
This project taught me a lot. I learned that communication is key. If there is a specific pose you want your model to do, tell them. Don't just let them guess what you want. This project also helped me get faster at changing settings for different locations and the ever moving clouds. I also learned that using the same facial expression is very boring and repetitive, it's very fun to try new/different facial expressions. Also, I learned that getting your model to laugh makes for great candid photos.