Megan by the window

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Dear Linda,

[QUOTE=Linda Brandon]How about cutting down all the bushes in front of your house? QUOTE]

Actually I think we just might move, we have an excellent realtor. I'll tell her exactly what my requirements are and she can probably find it !

Thank you for that post of Chris Saper's photograph. It's got me thinking again about an artificial light source.

I realize with natural light no two situations will ever be the same, but if I want to take a photo of a model, I need to have a better handle on the lighting situation. It's easy to call my daughter to this window or that window for three days in a row, but a client is different. I think it's a big deal for a client to get all dressed up and ready for a photo shoot, or have their child dressed up, and I don't want to have to call them back the next day and say I need more photos . I realize I need to be much more professional. Even for my 'practice' portraits with the neighbors' kids, I don't want to have to keep calling them back or going to their house over and over again.

I just took a long walk with my husband and talked his ear off about all this and the more I think about it, the more sense it makes to have a more constant light source, which I think means artificial lighting. Though I will keep trying to understand how to use natural light, but I need knowledge of both. It is ridiculous that it takes me days to get a usable reference photo when I could be starting on the next portrait.

I also think I should take the advice that I have read more than once on this forum and sign up for a photography class . I'll have to look at that as part of my education.

Well, I've talked long enough. I will try again with my daughter tomorrow earlier in the day and post a photo if I get a good one. I'll think positive!

Thanks again,

Joan

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Because the rooms in our house are on the small side I was having a hard time getting far enough away from my daughter to take photos without alot of distortion. That's when I thought about our garage. It's big and when I open up the garage door it's like a big window which luckily faces north. I think I got the classic 3/4 view, here it is:

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Here are two more which I thought were good photos of her but I wonder if the shadows are prominent enough? The garage was great to work in (sorry about the junk in the background! Next time I need fashion some kind of backdrop). I could move myself and my daughter closer to the door (and light) or farther into the garage away from the light.

[Joan Breckwoldt]

I took this one inside and I like the pose. I realize the camera is pointing down at her but I think it's kind of interesting. It would be a more ambitious portrait but it may be a good one for me to learn how to deal with more than just a head and shoulders. I could really enlarge it for details, plus I have my daughter right here so she could pose for me too.

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Here is one more that I had to share. Cynthia, I'm sorry for posting so many, I feel like you should send me a bill for all the extra space this is taking up . But this is helping me so much, thank you Cynthia for making this possible!!!

This is what I get when I ask my daughter to move closer to the window! We were having fun .

Thank you all, I look forward to your knowledgable input.

Joan

[Sharon Knettell]

Joan,

The focal length is much better. I did not want to say to much, because your daughter could have, in fact, had a rather large nose. I can see here that she is perfectly lovely and her features are well proportioned.

Two problems:
A: The skin tones are still too dark. Are you metering for her face or the shirt? It is better to meter for the face and let the shirt white out. You can take the same pose and meter for the shirt. The problem with digital is that you cannot burn and dodge, like in the old prints. With standard film, your printmaker can balance the final print. With digital, the information on overexposed light areas cannot be restored.

B: Make sure there are no trees at least 35' (50' is ideal) from where you are working. They can cast a dreadful Kermit like glow to skin and fabric. I know this from bitter experience. When I was first starting out, I was painting a perfectly lovely lady in an evening dress. After hours of keeping the poor thing standing, I could not figure out for the life of me why she was so green. I was mortified! As it tuned out, the trees in my original studio happened to be only 10' from my window. As they were on another property, I had to move my studio to a south facing sun room. Actually, since I am in the Northeast, it has worked out fine.

Don't worry about the missing nostril. Is there some portrait prohibition against that? I haven't heard that one, but then again I have apparently not heard everything! I like that angle the best, but Linda's observation about the 3/4 light is a good thing to follow, especially at that angle. She needs the light more fully on her face. The best light for what you are trying to do is between 10 and 2:00. You photographed her too late.

Hope this helps!

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Dear Sharon,

Thank you so much for such a thoughtful response to my photos. I don't have any kind of metering device. After I took these photos I remembered reading somewhere that the model shouldn't be wearing a white shirt.

I can take (whatever it is in my digital camera, don't know the right word) to the printmaker and can't she lighten these up? Since I can paint the colors from life could she lighten them and then I could use the photos more for the form? Hmm, maybe that won't work. I read on the forum where one artist takes his photos in B&W and then paints the color from life.

Originally Posted by Sharon Knettell

Make sure there are no trees at least 35' (50' is ideal) from where you are working. They can cast a dreadful Kermit like glow to skin and fabric.

Are you seeing green on her face? The ones taken by the garage have some trees up high over the edge of the driveway. Could this be causing the green?

Though I did take the first batch of photos late in the afternoon, the five posted above were taken between 11:00 -11:30 a.m. on a sunny day. I just don't know why my photos are consistently too dark. I just reviewed the photos from yesterday and they are all as dark as the ones I posted above or darker. I will buy that metering device you talked about above and that should at least tell me what I'm looking at as far as darkness/lightness. I also need to retake these with my daughter closer to the light.

Would you recommend against me trying to paint from these photos? I got some good poses but I guess I can do that again if I did it once.

Thank you again,

Joan

[Sharon Knettell]

Joan,

It is very difficult to lighten up a face on a standard print as it loses color saturation, with digital it is well nigh impossible.

You probably have an automatic metering system on your camera and you obviously are using that. The automatic meters for both the dark areas and the light and reaches a mean. To hold the light area you are losing the medium tones. You have to learn to overide the automatic system and learn to work more in manual mode. You have to meter on the face and bracket ( different exposures) to capture the white. At this point don't be too anxious to make a picture, master your photo skills first. There are a lot of good books out there that would help.

Take these photos as a learning experience, I would find them too dark to paint with. Give yourself the best possible material you can, especially at the beginning.

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Dear Sharon,

Thank you for your honest advice, I will certainly take it. Learning how to take good reference photos will be my first priority when we get back from our vacation. I live within 1/2 a mile of two good camera shops, they should be able to explain things to me. And there's probably a lot of info on the internet, and . . . oh yes, the manual that came with my digital camera!

Joan

[Mike McCarty]

Joan,

If your camera does not have a spot metering system (check the manual, easy feature to use) try this:

Frame your daughter as you did before, half figure including the white shirt. Within the viewfinder, notice that the metering system has chosen the optimum combination of aperture and shutter speed for this scene. It might read something like 60 at 5.6. Next, zoom into your daughters face, eliminating the white shirt. Notice that the two numbers have changed. Make note of this new exposure combination. At this point you have effectively "spot metered" her face and the camera has given no consideration, except for reflected light, to the white shirt.

At this point you can do one of two things, first you could, while zoomed in on the face, press the shutter release button half way down and lock in this exposure. With your finger still halfway depressing the shutter release (if you release it will loose the exposure you want) recompose the scene to include the shirt and shoot the picture. This takes a little agility but with a little practice you'll get the hang of it.

Your second choice would be to place your camera in full manual mode and select the shutter speed and aperture setting indicated above when you exposed for the face only, then take the picture.

I agree with the above comments about your daughter needing more light on her face. This should make that happen.