Sunday, April 13, 2014

Shooting Level - Portraits at Precious Pastime Photography

My daughter, Angela, recently had me come over to help her create an updated picture for her About page on her website.

I was immediately sent home to get my camera kit when I showed up empty handed. I guess I figured she had all the right gear.

Seeing me struggle with my new camera (D7100) Angela elected to re-configure it, setting it to manual and setting up the exposure, white balance, ISO, aperture, shutter speed and focusing mode. Then she mounted her primary lens. Angela had never used the D7100 but found it all too familiar with the her other Nikon gear. In addition, she knew her studio lighting conditions.

With some elementary high-level instructions she had me snapping away. In the end I had selected my favourite image from the lot but she elected a different image.



After the session with Angela my grandson came out to investigate and I took the opportunity with the studio set up to get in front of the camera with him and put Angela to work.



In the end Angela and I had discussed these images, among others, talking about camera angles for portrait images. We had recently listen to Peter Hurley discuss this topic in his work. He appears dead against upward portrait shots (can't argue with him there) and he's against downward portraits too.

Reviewing his impressive on-line portfolio I could not find anything but straight-on shots.

I think the slight angle downwards, as with the image of my grandson and me, works very well. However, it has been stated that I'm bias when it comes to images of my grandson.



Craig

No comments: