My Kids

[Michele Rushworth]

Allan Rahbeck wrote:

Do you have a spot metering in the camera? Be sure to measure at the light parts of the face.

That's exactly what I was thinking. It seems as if either spot metering or "center weighted metering" was in effect and the camera metered off a different part of the image in each shot. There's no way to recover enough information in the blown out highlights in the left areas of his face. You'll need to reshoot.

[Vianna Szabo]

Thank you everyone for the wonderful feed back. I think of this site as portrait university, but P.U. doesn't sound so good. I took more photos of my son yesterday and am happier with the results, however, after reading all the great advice I think I will photograph him again in front of a different window, posing in another direction and use the spot meter. Luckily he is very easy going. Painting your own children is an interesting challenge. The mother in me is looking for those expressions of their personalities that I cherish and makes me overlook artistic flaws in the reference material. I suppose I am my own worst client. Thanks for the compliment, Jimmy, I do have "great looking" kids.

Vianna

[Mike McCarty]

Vianna,

That looks much better. Since you are thinking about making a matched pair I would vote for changing your sons jacket, which in contrast to your daughter seems really casual. I think I would go with a collared shirt and sport coat. The suggestion about opposing views is also a good one.

It may be personal preference but I would like to see your daughters head go a little more toward the vertical.

[Vianna Szabo]

Well I had to wait a few days for the gray skies to return. I changed his position and attempted to meter the light. I am much happier with this pose but I think the light shape of the arm coming forward is awkward. I kept him in the same coat because he loves it. A clean tee shirt is as dressed up as he will get. I was able to remove the earphones which he had surgically attached to his head. Do you think 20"x24" is too large a canvas for these? Let me know what you think.

Vianna

[Michele Rushworth]

Nice light, nice pose (don't even mind the coat so much) but the color balance seems off. Did you set your white balance to shade or cloudy?

[Vianna Szabo]

I'm glad you like the pose, Michele. I set the white balance to shady but the color is still much warmer than my daughters photo. Hopefully I can work from the photo and life to get the color correction I need.

Vianna

[Patricia Joyce]

I don't have any advice, but I wanted to say, that your kids are great looking and they have GREAT features to draw/paint. Good luck. Looking forward to seeing the portraits in process...