PalePictures Loc: Traveling

When I do full body portraits I like to keep things as simple as possible. Many times I will place just one other single item to play against the primary subject. I thought I would post to examples both of which are on my website.

Portrait 1)
This photo uses a childs fascination with a wooly worm. Depth of field was controlled by shooting in AV and rotating the dial on my 5DMKIII to quickly adjust the settings between shot. It's imperative to evaluate the light to see what your meter in camera reads at each AV setting. In this particular case I quickly changed my Aperture starting at 2.8, 4.0, 5.6. for three successive shots. My ISO was set at 400 to make sure I had 1/250 shutter at 5.6. The three successive shots happens at around 2 seconds.
Shooting long at 185mm gives me the range of depth of field I like in my portraits. The lens is the Canon 70-200 2.8L ISII

Portrait 2)
This photo uses a low Aperture as well. I think around 3.5 or so. I got plenty of depth of field because of the distance to the subject. I wanted the sign to play off the crossed arm subject.
Again the subject plays off just one other component the sign. This photo was actually a candid that I got busted on. I later met the guy(Clint) and we laughed about me getting busted and he signed a release. This photo was cleaned up a bit. There was a sign that had to be removed. In this photo the location does come into play more than in photo 1. This could be considered somewhat of a third element in the composition.

For both shots above the light is very diffused! This can be done in several ways for natural light shots.

1) Clipped light from Structures(trees/buildings/overhangs) Example 2 above.
2) Cloudy days. Example 1 above.
3) Late in the evening or early morning. when the Sun falls and doesn't create a direct light source.

I wanted to post these shots to show how quality photos must be thought out. It's not something just happens. Besides the processing that is evident to make a Professional looking image The original image and how it comes out of camera is extremely important. Good photography matters.

Russ Elkins

Wooly Worm


Closed

PalePictures Loc: Traveling

Excuse my Grammar above. It's late!

jonsommer Loc: Usually, somewhere on the U.S. west coast.

Russ, late or not, perfect grammar or not, your work often takes my breath away. Not only is it technically superior, (something most of us could probably eventually learn to do) but your work consistently has an emotionally compelling 'drama' and you have the ability to put the viewer in the shoes of your subject and reflect on what they are experiencing (something that the rest of us can only hope to do, occasionally, and you do it consistently).

Thank you for posting, I learn from you, your work motivates me to work harder, these images and your street series are among the most touching and compelling work I have seen on this forum. Not only that, you take the time to 'teach' us how to improve our own work, if we listen.

I'll looks forward to seeing your every post. Thank you, I needed a thoughtful start to this day, and you gave it to me.

Literati Loc: South Carolina

Thanks for taking the time to share. Emotion and technical skills combine for great results.

Photoman74 Loc: Conroe Tx

Thank You! reading you post reinforced my thoughts when I saw the images. I always view the images first ( my own emotions set frame of mind from photo) Read post next (Photographer) and last posted comments from forum. I feel in this way I receive the best education from the presentation. I post the earned thumbs before reading at all, hopefully this is a fair judgement from me only. I did not do so this time. Your work is an example we all could strive to achieve. Thanks for sharing.

PalePictures Loc: Traveling

Thank you Jon,literati, and Photoman for your kind words.
I wanted to bring up another couple of points on composition.
Most all of my shots are composed at 16X20(8x10)
The reason for this is 2 fold.
1) 16x20 is a standard frame size
2) This size is the largest standard frame size that epson 3880 can print.

Although my composites are now 16x20, I am moving into square cropped images. I initially liked the wide format crop for computer display. Given the diversity of devices this is much less of a factor at least in my opinion.
I feel the square crop is much more conducive to displaying the type of composites and compositions that I am now pursuing.
A couple of artist for wide format compositing are:
1) Tim Tadder - commercial wide format
2) Joel grimes - Wide format portraits/fashion/commercial
3) Scott Black - fine art ---- one of the best

For square crop
1) Caros Ionut - fine art
2) PhatPuppy - book covers

(I am going from memory on PhatPuppy)

Just another thought to ponder on some technical aspects of photography and formatting your final images for print or web display.

jonsommer Loc: Usually, somewhere on the U.S. west coast.

Russ, once again you have given me something to think about, a square crop, hmmm. As I just looked around my office/studio, I don't have a single square crop image on display, not one, now I wonder why. Everything in here is either 'landscape or portrait' - and I didn't think I was such a creature of habit to not even consider a square crop. Hmmm, now I'm gonna go play and see if a different crop will give me a new way to see things. I'll also check out the artists you mentioned. Thanks.

PalePictures Loc: Traveling

Jon,
I went back and looked at PhatPuppy and noticed she has a mix of crops.
Caros Ionut is almost exclusively square crop composites.
You can see Caros composite images at:

http://500px.com/carasionut

His video courses are the best that I have found on this type of work. I have purchased 10 of his courses and am still learning. The unique thing about Caras is that he uses his on stock. I have been shooting stock images for the the past two years. Finally getting enough images to make(Composite) what I like.

I know that most photographers won't take this direction. It's just a personal choice for me. There are not a lot of people in the world that can make images of this quality. Putting together multiple natural light images and making it look real is true art. I love the challenge of it.

Regards,

Russ

bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

Russ, I'm saying it again, you are a real assett to UHH.

Thanks for sharing
Bob

raymondh Loc: Walker, MI

What an inspiration & valuable resource you've been to this forum! :thumbup:

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Love the symmetry of the second capture. The building/corner/sign/curb/position of the subject, wonderful balance. I'm going to bust you chops a bit on the first, Love the Light and the mood, but the background kills it for me. Always enjoy your work.

PalePictures Loc: Traveling

Thank you for your kind words Bob and Raymond.

PalePictures Loc: Traveling

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a technician to create a perfect photo.

But through photoshop all things are possible.

I have found rarely that there is the perfect photograph but there is the perfect image.. somewhere out there.

and always get up early......

Early to Rise

jonsommer Loc: Usually, somewhere on the U.S. west coast.

Russ, I just spent quite a bit of time marveling at Caras' images. Simply amazing. As I was looking, I wondered if the work would have been equally compelling no matter how it was cropped, landscape, portrait, or square. My answer was a resounding 'probably' but I'll experiment with square crops when I think it's best for the image, anyway, something I would likely not even have considered we're it not for your comment.

Thank you for the link, but most of all, thank you for your consistently useful, helpful, inspiring, thought provoking and encouraging contributions to this forum.

Bye the way, I think the wooly worm photo was better without the dark top right corner. When I looked back at the original, I found the corner surprisingly distracting and I don't think I even noticed it the first time around.

Quickflash Loc: Loganville, Ga

Russ, your skills in both photography as well PP never cease to amaze! Both images are awesome, but I really love the 1st one, especially after you fixed the background. The expression on the boy's face is priceless!
Thanks for sharing your knowledge along with your work.

Dave