Title: Death by Plastic Sword
Date taken: 12/4/12
Camera: Panasonic Lumix
Lens: Standard
Shutter speed: 1/50 sec
F-stop: f/4.5
ISO: 3200
Focal length: 14mm
Tripod: yes
When I first heard about the portrait
assignment, I was excited to get started.
This was not only because I had never really tried portraiture before,
but also because I discovered that I have access to a photography studio at
Rocky. Sadly, however, because I was
unable to use the studio due to schedule conflicts and my own
absent-mindedness, I decided that my next best option would be setting up a mini-studio
in my family’s dining room.
Because
I am a busy person, the only time I had available to take these portraits was
at night with the absence of all natural light.
To aid this, I moved furniture around in order to make room to set up my
tripod and the additional lights needed to take the sharp pictures I wanted.
Once
my little studio was set up, I had my little sister put on some makeup and nice
clothes. I also had my little brother
get dressed up, letting him choose his own outfit while I told him to grab his
plastic sword as a prop. After both of
my siblings were ready to go, I began with taking pictures of my sister – experimenting
with one of the lamps I used as a light source, and trying a variety of angles
and distances to achieve different effects.
Immediately after finishing with my sister, I had my little brother take
his turn. While my sister generally
stood still and tried to look as pretty as possible, my little brother was a
fountain of energy and expression.
Because of his energy, and his inability to stand still, I had a
difficult time getting crisp clear pictures of him, though his expressions
where very interesting and amusing.
After
taking many, many pictures, I uploaded them to my computer and sorted through
them one by one – discarding the bad ones, and editing the good ones in
photoshop. While I left several of them
alone, my two favorites (one of my sister, and one of my brother), where
adjusted using levels, brightness/contrast, and my sister’s face was touched up
slightly with the clone tool.
Overall,
I feel like my journey into portraiture was successful, and I enjoyed taking
shots of my siblings. While using a
professional studio would have been a wonderful experience, I feel as if using
the dining room was an even better place because it allowed my siblings to be
in a surrounding where they felt most comfortable and at-ease, allowing me to
take a greater variety of pictures.
Altogether, I enjoyed the project and hope that sometime in the near future
I will be able to take a greater variety of portraits – not only of my family
but of other people as well.
Title: Posed and Pretty
Date taken: 12/4/12
Camera: Panasonic Lumix
Lens: Standard
Shutter speed: 1/8 sec
F-stop: f/4.6
ISO: 100
Focal length: 16mm
Tripod: yes
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