Portrait 3/52 - Jamie

For this week’s portrait, my lovely wife Jamie volunteered to be my subject. She was very patient while I tried to develop my eye for posing. I think my favorite shot of the bunch is this one where her eyes really catch the light well:

I also liked a more pulled out version of the same pose:

In both the shots above, I didn’t particularly care for the prominent wall corner above Jamie’s head or the texture of the wall. For a shot that doesn’t have those issues, I like this one:

This last one also seems most in keeping with the style of the previous ones, especially Jeff’s. Part of this project is to explore and learn but I also want to end up with a cohesive collection. What that ends up as is definitely part of the exploration.

Technical Details

I set up the lighting in a similar way to Jeff’s portrait, however I neglected to turn on the transmitter for the background flash. So this was a 2 light setup. The main light was a shoot through umbrella with the flash set to 1/2 power. This light was close to on axis with the camera with the bottom of the umbrella just above the view of the lens. The 8x36 gridded strip box at 1/4 power again provided the rim/fill light. It was set up even with Jamie at camera left, but was a bit further away than previous setups. Camera settings were again 1/160s, f8.0, and ISO 100.

Conclusions

With my patient wife as my subject, I felt I was able to gain some valuable insight into the subtle nuances of posing. The slightest adjustment to chin or shoulder position can make a huge difference and I am beginning to understand that better.

As for the lighting, I wish that the background light had been turned on. I ended up doing a lot of dodging to try and brighten up the walls, but it is always better to get it in camera. Also, I think that my rim/fill light could have been turned up a bit since it was a little more distant than before. I occasionally get an inadvertant double shot which inevitably doesn’t include the main light in the second shot. This is useful for determining what the second light is doing and in this case it definitely could have been stronger.