Archive of ‘Portrait’ category

Headshots – Northern Virginia DC Photographer

Headshot photography - ©TimeLine Media

Spring is coming soon – hopefully! We had another bout with the snow yesterday, so I had plenty of time to edit photos inside. Every so often, it is good to update your headshots. I have plenty of different images that I use for avatars and profile photos. These are from many test shoots before my clients arrive. I use myself to test lights. Thus, I end up with lots of images to choose from in the collection. This day was no different – T. and I have been coordinating a shoot. Before she arrived, I setup the lights and the background. With the small space that I was working with, I decided to use the beauty dish for the main light on the subject. This modifies produces a very nice quality of light for faces, and there is a huge drop off from the subject keeping the light from illuminating the background cloth.

Home Studio Setup

Portrait lighting testing - ©TimeLine Media - headshots of blog author
Portrait lighting testing – ©TimeLine Media

Keeping the light off the background is important to separate your subject from the background. It works really well for portraits as it gives your subject some space in the photo. This is a piece of feedback I give to a lot of photographers when viewing their portfolios. When you are taking the time to pose a subject, and you are trying to find the best angle to place them for a photo, do not place them too close to a background element. This could include walls, plants, statues, or anything that is behind them. When you place your subjects there, you can get some strong shadows behind your subjects from a flash, and your background will be in sharp focus. I try to minimize both when making portraits – I want the subject to not have any competition from distractions in the background. If you need an updated headshot, contact me at 703-864-8208 or Rassi at timelinedc.com and we can discuss what I can produce for you!

Headshot photography - ©TimeLine Media - headshots example
Headshots photography – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Creating Vignettes in Lightroom – Tech Thursday

Wisconsin State Capitol at dusk - ©TimeLine Media

When Adobe Lightroom first came on the scene, it added the ability to create vignettes. I saw many photos with the darkened corners. It was not until I installed the beta of the program that I saw why! This look stems from the technical deficiencies of old cameras. Some larger format cameras or older lenses were not as precise with their ability to transmit light to the edges.

Post Processing

Wisconsin State Capitol at dusk - ©TimeLine Media
Wisconsin State Capitol at dusk – ©TimeLine Media

Now, every image editing app from Instagram to Snapseed has a way to purposefully add vignettes to your photos. I saw a demonstration where Parker J. Pfister had extreme uses of vignettes in his photos that brought the darkness in much farther into the frame. Some of the darkening did not even follow a light fall-off pattern that an old lens would produce, but the images were stunning. The reason that this works is that your eye will be attracted to the brightest thing in the frame first.

Event Portrait - ©TimeLine Media
Event Portrait – ©TimeLine Media

In most cases, you will want the brightest part of the frame to be your subjects face if you are photographing a person. Sometimes it will be an object in the foreground that you would like to emphasize over the background. Adding a vignette is very easy in the Effects panel of Lightroom 5. After you make your crop, the Post-Crop Vignetting tool is used to darken the corners, and you can set how far into the frame you would like to darken. You can also set how much you would like the vignette to darken, and how dramatic a drop off you want that to happen. Be cautious that you do not over do it! Over darkening of these edges where it becomes too obvious can make it distracting for your viewers taking away from the overall impact of the image.

Studio Portrait - ©TimeLine Media
Studio Portrait – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Thanksgiving with the X100s

©TimeLine Media - Thanksgiving apple tart

The Thanksgiving holiday presented another opportunity for me to learn more about using the FujiFilm X100s. This mirror-less camera was the only camera I took with me while visiting family. Traveling with this much smaller camera was very freeing! I did not have to keep track of gear, and it was much easier to move the camera around in right places like kitchens where lots of good food was prepared.

Food Photography

©TimeLine Media - Thanksgiving pancit
©TimeLine Media – Thanksgiving pancit 

On this trip, I specifically tried to use the built-in on-camera flash. There is a tiny rectangle above the lens where the stroboscopic light comes out of the body. This is different from many DSLRs with built-in flashes in that this does not “pop-up” above the lens. Seeing this setup, I thought that this would create problems with red-eyes because of the angle of the flash and lens were almost the same. This was the case, so I would not recommend using this for portraits. There is a hot-shoe slot on the top of the camera body, so I will try using an external flash unit with this body if I need to add light while photographing a lot of people.

Portrait Photography

©TimeLine Media - eating break
©TimeLine Media – eating break

It is possible to use a slow curtain sync with the flash in order to mix the flash with the ambient light.  In this case, the flash worked well to add some blur into motion-tracking photos. I can see this being useful where direct flash mixed with a bright background can add some creatively blurred photos much like the motorcycle photos. This would likely have to be done with a manual pre-focus on the subject since the auto focus tracking in the camera is very slow. In what I wanted to capture at family gatherings, this camera suited me just fine!

©TimeLine Media - Thanksgiving apple tart
©TimeLine Media – Thanksgiving apple tart

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

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