Lifestyle-esque shoot

UaeExile

UaeExile

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Adam
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Had an impromptu 15 minute shoot with a local blogger today. She wanted some photos for her blog/social media so we kept it really simple and casual.

The conditions were quite difficult shooting in almost 40* heat at midday, but I'm quite please with how they came out in the end. We're hoping to organise another shoot with more time and in better conditions in a few weeks, but C&C on this lot would be welcome :)

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58mm perhaps?? 1,2,3 and the oddly last one for me, though she looks az bit like she is gritting her teeth ... She has a lovely smile and her expression in 1 is terrific, just works well for me. Lovely relaxed pose in 3 too.
 
PaulButler said:
58mm perhaps?? 1,2,3 and the oddly last one for me, though she looks az bit like she is gritting her teeth ... She has a lovely smile and her expression in 1 is terrific, just works well for me. Lovely relaxed pose in 3 too.
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Thanks for the feedback Paul.

It was the 58, but it was so bloody bright I had to stop it down a little so no 1.4 goodness here :D
 
UaeExile said:
Thanks for the feedback Paul.

It was the 58, but it was so bloody bright I had to stop it down a little so no 1.4 goodness here :D
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My EXIF reads the first is @ f2, fifth @ f1.8 and the rest at f1.4. Is my EXIF reader right

I like the photos Adam, but I think the 58mm can be a marmite lens to some, with it's sometimes softer, dreamy, hazy type rendering over the clinical look of a lens like the Sigma 50mm ART. I would love one if the Euros come in.
 
Nice light. Wish I had more of that in the UK (though quite happy without it being 40 degrees!)

She does look slightly awkward in front of the camera in a few of them - perhaps partly because it was such a short shoot, she didn't have time to get comfortable in front of the camera?

Tying the shoelace seems a bit... odd? to me unless she has a particular connection to shoes in her blogs.

Plastic nudge in (I assume) trick on the last one is nice, maybe a touch too far in though and you've got that oil rainbow going on - experiment with a few different things, small glass blocks often work nicely

I'd boost the shadows a touch and maybe give the highlights a touch of orange, but that's personal preference, a couple look a tiny bit cold?

Nice set! and now I'm very intriguied by the 58...
 
Swanseajack said:
My EXIF reads the first is @ f2, fifth @ f1.8 and the rest at f1.4. Is my EXIF reader right

I like the photos Adam, but I think the 58mm can be a marmite lens to some, with it's sometimes softer, dreamy, hazy type rendering over the clinical look of a lens like the Sigma 50mm ART. I would love one if the Euros come in.
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Really? Goes to show how much attention I pay to my settings when I'm on the fly. Could have sworn they were mostly f2 but I've just checked LR and you're right!

I agree it's marmite but I love it hence why I spent so much dosh on it! Thanks for the feedback Simon.
 
I really like the way the 58mm renders images, cannot explain it very well, it just has something rather nice about it, Simon (@Swanseajack ) uses the word hazy I sort of get that, I'd probably say dreamy but ... I don't like using "normal" lenses in focal length terms, but this could change my mind (finances permitting).
 
itsdavedotnet said:
Nice light. Wish I had more of that in the UK (though quite happy without it being 40 degrees!)

She does look slightly awkward in front of the camera in a few of them - perhaps partly because it was such a short shoot, she didn't have time to get comfortable in front of the camera?

Tying the shoelace seems a bit... odd? to me unless she has a particular connection to shoes in her blogs.

Plastic nudge in (I assume) trick on the last one is nice, maybe a touch too far in though and you've got that oil rainbow going on - experiment with a few different things, small glass blocks often work nicely

I'd boost the shadows a touch and maybe give the highlights a touch of orange, but that's personal preference, a couple look a tiny bit cold?

Nice set! and now I'm very intriguied by the 58...
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Great thanks for the detailed feedback! Yeah the WB probably is a bit off in some... I need to step away from them for a few days and come back with fresh eyes.

Yeah the shoe fastening thing was off the cuff, but if you look at fashion bloggers, to be honest it's not really that odd... The whole idea is causal. Going about daily lives. Drinking coffee blah blah... I don't totally understand it myself but kids these days :D

Last three were all shot through a 6"glass prism to kill the dead space. Although it was a nice area we were shooting in we were literally 10 feet away from a 6 lane road so there were vans/wagons/buses the lot speeding by getting in my background. Totally agree on the last one though... Too much over the face :facepalm:
 
Technically very good, I've only a slight niggle and it's with the direction rather than the technical photography - she's only got one smile/expression, and it's slightly awkward. One appearance and it's almost natural but with every repetition it loses that. She might not be comfortable in front of the camera and I think you need to draw out more emotion from her during the shoot, get her to relax, laugh, etc.
 
Alastair said:
Technically very good, I've only a slight niggle and it's with the direction rather than the technical photography - she's only got one smile/expression, and it's slightly awkward. One appearance and it's almost natural but with every repetition it loses that. She might not be comfortable in front of the camera and I think you need to draw out more emotion from her during the shoot, get her to relax, laugh, etc.
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Agreed.
 
I'm with Simon and Alastair on these, plus to my eyes on this calibrated Eizo, yer WB's a bit weird.

Did you recognise at the time that she was doing her Photo Face?
 
Alastair said:
Technically very good, I've only a slight niggle and it's with the direction rather than the technical photography - she's only got one smile/expression, and it's slightly awkward. One appearance and it's almost natural but with every repetition it loses that. She might not be comfortable in front of the camera and I think you need to draw out more emotion from her during the shoot, get her to relax, laugh, etc.
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Thanks Alistair, that's really useful. In an ideal world we'd have had an hour or so as that's what we had planned, but unfortunately it ended up being 15 minutes so relaxing and coaxing more interesting looks out of her was difficult. In the end I thought she had a really charming smile and we just stuck with it. Thanks again :)
 
Serendipitous Sid said:
I'm with Simon and Alastair on these, plus to my eyes on this calibrated Eizo, yer WB's a bit weird.

Did you recognise at the time that she was doing her Photo Face?
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In what way weird Dan? I did try the dropper in LR but it was hopeless so I had a quick bash myself. Due to the tree covering there was a green cast so I tried to balance that out but ended up going backwards and forwards before posting here for C&C. If you could give me a nudge in the right direction I'd appreciate it because I can see it's not right.

Re photo face. Not really. Still don't see it now to be totally honest!

EDIT: After scrolling through them here, yeah I know what you mean. Most similar / the same.
 
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juggler said:
Lovely work! Only one observation, not necessarily a criticism - a few of them are shot from quite a high viewpoint, I normally get a little lower for 3/4 and full length.
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Cheers Simon, I'll bare that in mind (y)
 
I really like the first and forth ones but they are all good.
I agree with juggler about trying a lower angle although you've done a very good job on the first one which probably wouldn't be as good if shot from lower.
 
UaeExile said:
In what way weird Dan?
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I'll leave that for somebody else to answer (maybe Simon?) on the grounds that I'm not a big fan of current trends in processing, with which these might well be aligned for all I know. But FWIW I don't see a white white anywhere ...

Anyhow, while I'm at it, if you tend to struggle with WB, have you ever considered using a (proper) grey card or suchlike to give you a reference? One thing we used to get every summer was group shots near enough to trees to give us a green cast, and this was a real PITA until I started using one of the original WiBal thingies to give me a black, a grey and a white.

Ref Photo Face, my favourite tactic was to keep the camera pointed at the subject, keep looking through the viewfinder and suddenly say "Right then. Give me three words that describe you as a person, starting NOW ..." Absolutely guaranteed to overcome Photo Face and give you an interesting variety of expressions if you're quick enough to catch them ... ;)
 
Serendipitous Sid said:
I'll leave that for somebody else to answer (maybe Simon?) on the grounds that I'm not a big fan of current trends in processing, with which these might well be aligned for all I know. But FWIW I don't see a white white anywhere ...

Anyhow, while I'm at it, if you tend to struggle with WB, have you ever considered using a (proper) grey card or suchlike to give you a reference? One thing we used to get every summer was group shots near enough to trees to give us a green cast, and this was a real PITA until I started using one of the original WiBal thingies to give me a black, a grey and a white.
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I reckon the WB isn't far off at all - and assumed the toning was deliberate. I like the cool highlights!

If you're aiming for neutral then looking at the RGB values of her shirt suggests that there's too much blue and not enough red. Perhaps the shirt is slightly blue in reality but my eye wants to see it as pure white. The leaves look to have not enough yellow in them either.

In difficult situations when I haven't shot a card I sometimes use the dropper on the whites of the eyes and then tweak by eye to make the image a tiny bit warmer (i.e. more orange or lower K value). Whites of the eye usually have red and green about equal and blues just a tiny bit below that. Obviously if you've enhanced the eyes already you'll need to go back to the unedited version.

fwiw this was always going to be difficult; open shade is bluer than direct sun and you've got both in the image as well as the green cast from the trees.
 
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