A bridge too far
 

This is "Terminator 1" and "Terminator 2"

I took these fourteen year old twins to the Philbrook Museum here in Tulsa. Here are some of the results. When I get myself into these situations I feel obligated to take a few pic's just for photo sakes.

Even my fancy smansy new camera couldn't overcome these conditions. I really like this first composition. However, I just could not get it done with these conditions. I would love to go back and make a plan for this shot.

The second one is a little flat and cool but I like it.

The third must be the perfect compositon for two teenagers.

And the last just goofing around.

This first image was extracted from the second raw image. It's amazing to me that there is that much information packed into that image.

Would anyone like to offer some advice regarding the re-shooting of this image?

The colors are so strong, they influence and reflect onto all that come near them. Even if you brought in some auxiliary front lighting, which I think you might want to do, I don't think you could get around the strong effect these colors would have.

I suppose you could just deal with it in black and white and introduce your own colors.

Hi Mike,

I am going to make a wild guess on what to do. Could it be that the D70 could not handle the big difference in light, coming from the window, and the softer light in the room.

I would try at a later time a day, so maybe the sunlight is coming more from the window, that we don

Allan,

That's some pretty good thinking. The large door windows were facing due east at about 11:00 AM with a full sun day.

In the afternoon on a cloudy day might just do the trick. I'm sure I did spot metering but the light was just too intense and it turned those colors electric.

I may not get to redo with these gals but it's a good learning
experience.

These two person compositions are not so easy. I thought I had something going here but I'm put off by the elbow.

In the next shot notice how much reflected red this gal got on her nose and upper lip.

Here are two young girls by Bouguereau called "Hazelnuts."

And then one more two person composition by W.B., which will no doubt be forthcoming for these girls.

Mike--

Regarding the one in question with strong colors, I don't think it's just colors reflecting off of the environment. It looks like a classic case of using daylight film when the predominant light is tungsten--if it were film (I realize it's not). Would your digital camera be keying off of the window somehow unintentionally?

If the camera was set for warm tungsten light, the window would read bluer, I'd guess.

I just find it hard to believe that all of the contamination on the girls is reflected color bouncing onto them. I've been wrong before, but it looks like a wayward camera setting to me.

Cheers--TE

Red Rose reflected
 

Mike,

I like your pictures and admire your enthusiasm. It

Mike,

I love this series of pictures.

Regarding the colorful shot in the museum, what, if any enhancements did you make to this photo in Photoshop, before you sized it down and posted it above? I have the sense that you had to drastically lighten it in "Levels" or "Curves" beyond the digital forgiveness range. This is because I see jumpy, grainy color transitions, with some over-saturation. Was this photo much darker originally, with the metering being thrown off by the brightness of the window? This has happened to me a lot too.

I agree with Tom that tungsten lighting appears to dominate as the interior light source.

In general, are the pictures ready to use as exposed in your camera, or do you routinely adjust them before we see them? I guess I am trying to sense if there is a significant difference between the way a 2 year old Nikon D100 and a new Nikon D70 will interpret the same imagery. Typically my shots are slightly dark and underexposed (using -.03 exposure compensation) so I will better preserve the highlight information. But to share the photos, I usually need to brighten them up slightly first. In general, I get the sense that your camera handles highlights better than mine (just part of camera evolution, I guess).

Thanks for sharing these,

Garth

Oh, yum, Mike these photos are like a candy shop! I'm not sure I am following your question about the bright yellow/gold/red - but in Photoshop CS, there is a feature under Image - Adjust -Photo filter.

You can choose a cool or warm filter which will give the overall image a hue shift that does approximate a change in Kelvin temp. However, when you shoot RAW imag, Nikon has a program called - (I forget, I'll look it up for you) which allows you go into a RAW image and change the white point after the fact. Is that cool or what?

Combined with using your level adjustments and other features, I think you may be able to turn that image into a great one. Personally, I never mind painting from a good black and white, in fact I think it's better to have no color at all than to continually fight bad color.

To all who replied,

This colorful image is the result of much manipulation in my software. After much retro thinking I believe that I must not have used the spot meter. The photo, as taken, was very dark.

I don't think my initial analysis was well thought out regarding the resulting image, and I destroyed the original image in trying to get enough information out of it to show the composition here. I never considered that it would be usable.

It could well be that the garishness of the colors are partly the result of my manipulation. Although, those colors did exist. It was a very bold palette in that room. The camera was set to auto-white-balance and the only light in the room was window light.

I think that the bottom line is that I screwed up a good opportunity and I can't even come up with a good post mortum analysis because of my haste. Lesson learned.

Also, I really need to train myself to check my preview when I move from pose to pose and between different lighting conditions. With film I just jumped around dumb as a clam. I need to now take advantage of those things I have at my disposal.

Garth,

I would say yes.

However, my camera also presents images that are slightly too dark. I always lighten them up before presenting them here or printing them.

I had always heard that with digital cameras you had to be right on with the exposure because you could not correct up or down as much as with film. I don't find that to be the case with this camera. I am always amazed at how much information is there. Like the example I showed above of the one girl taken out of the very dark exposure. I got an 8x10 image printed of that today and it was amazingly good.

Also, the camera really picks up reflected color (maybe accurately) when color exists, like leaves or flowers. Below is an example of how the yellow / green leaves influenced the girls face when she was standing behind them. But, as in this closeup, there is a pretty good color rendition.

These are lovely Mike - I only have one comment...
As a mother, I want to hand these two 14-year-olds some wet-naps and get them to wipe off some of the makeup. I am going to go glare at my 11-year-old daughter in the hope she will understand.

Some lovely stuff, here Mike. My favorites are the various closeups, for the simple reason that their outfits (along with all that makeup that Kim mentioned) make these gorgeous fourteen year old's look as tough as nails.

On the shot with the extreme orange color, I concur with the other opinions above. Looks like a white balance problem to me. A tungsten setting with spot metering on one of the faces would have worked better, I think.

Would these models go for a reshoot? With some more classic clothing, some softer makeup and some variations in how the color of the light is handled by your camera on the interior shots you could have many, many jaw dropping portrait samples here.

Mike, did you approach the museum to get permission to photograph your models there? What a great idea, what I could do in the cleveland museum!!!

Kim,

I've got three grown daughters and as I recall they all went through the "too much makeup" phase. Fourteen is a pretty tough age for a girl I think. It's no picnic for a dad either.

As far as these images go ... I think I would trade but a few for a few minutes next to my dinning room window. It seems to me that all the posing and color can never substitute for good light. To get good directional light out of doors in the middle of the day you you have to be really really good, or just lucky.

I arranged to meet these girls and their mother at the museum instead of my house because I don't know them and they don't know me. No harm, no foul.

Michele,

First of all I thought they were identical twins, clearly they are not. When I first saw them a couple of weeks ago they were dressed identically and had their hair done identically. When I spoke to the mother I thought we agreed that they would dress the same. Most people don't have a clue what we are trying to do or the level of nitpicking we are capable of. I go under the impression that when you meet someone for the first time it's just a warm up. Most of the time the thing that messes the deal up is things like improper clothing and their failure to understand exactly what you are trying to accomplish. Lord knows it couldn't be my fault. It takes a lot of patience. I would dearly love to persue that one indoor composition, but, I don't think I will have the opportunity.

Patricia,

My philosophy is - it's better to seek forgiveness, than to ask permission. When we arrived in the lobby I had one of the girls carry my camera around her neck. My understanding is that if you are a professional, bringing you client to the museum, they will ask for an annual usage fee. I don't have any trouble looking unprofessional. Also it's typical that they allow no flash inside.

Patricia, I think Mike has the right idea. You have a great museum in Cleveland. Go for it!

...or happen to stumble on a few good books on outdoor portrait photography. The single most valuable tip I've read on outdoor lighting is to put the subject under something, to block the light coming from above. Then the light has to come in from the side. Put them on a porch with a roof, under a big tree, etc.

The only alternative to that idea that I have found is to backlight the subject. That still works best either very early or late in the day, though. Otherwise all the light in the mid-day sky makes the subject squint too much. The main drawback to this lighting scheme is that there's hardly any definition in the form of the face, but you can often get a nice glowing edge on the hair or on the body that kind of makes up for it.

Michele,

I would ditto all that. The absolute worst case is midday with the sun coming straight down. Your chances go way up in the morning or evening.

To my own credit, I am constantly putting myself in a position to fail. I don't mean that I want to fail, I do work hard to overcome the obstacles, but, it's in the screwing up that you get better.

I've said it before, you want to stretch yourself when the pressure is not on. Do it on your own nickle as often as you can.