Advice on Portrait Questions & Homemade Accessories Coming Soon

Question:To: [email protected]

Thanks PapaD, I'll look into it.  I had a photo session last weekend (I think you saw the few photos I posted on facebook).  Here's a link to all of them if you're curious to see .  I think I did a lot better this time.  It was in the evening on a crappy cloudy day, so I had to use a high ISO.  There are a lot of fuzzy pictures.  I just keep telling myself that people aren't going to care as much as I do, plus they're not going to see them as huge on their screen as I do when I'm editing them.  Even though I want to do this free for people so I can get experience, it's so much work to process all the pictures.  This girl also wanted me to crop certain pictures and email them to the lady who is going to make their save-the-date cards for their wedding.  I'm pretty sure that's why I gave her a cd with all the files on it.  It's a lot to do without any compensation.  What do you think I should do about charging people?  Obviously my work is not worth as much as someone who has more experience, but I'm still spending a lot of time on it.  Do you think I should charge them for the CD with the files on it or just charge a session fee?  Or do you think I should just keep doing this for free for a while until I build a portfolio?  I don't want the word to get out too much that I'm doing this for free because at what point am I going to all of a sudden start charging people since I'll just be gradually improving?  You know what I mean?  I'm sure you have some good advice for me. :)

 

My Answer:

Hi B: I am very impressed with your progress. You (and they) should be very happy with those. The ones of the dog are astonishingly sharp at the "normal" resolution. That speaks well of both your lens and camera as well as your ability to use them (to hold, make correct settings such as ISO, white balance, etc.). As you know, you can take the chill off of a cloudy day be varying the white balance. I like the soft renderings of a cloudy day and/or shade.
I can tell that you are learning to "see" the subtleties of light. You may have tried this drill before, but it is a good excrcise to have a subject, at shooting distance, to turn to follow you with a frontal position as you walk in a circle or semi-circle around them, and watch as the light changes the modeling effects on their faces. The goal is to get as much of a 3-D effect via shadows and highlights as possible. Buildings and other obstructions as well as the position of the sun behind the clouds will also make a big difference in what you see.
A good guage allowing you to readily see a difference is in the eyes and around and under the eyes. This is often very subtle, but it can make a huge difference in the appearance and separates the pros from the weekend shooters. If needed, the easiest way to open up these shadows as well as add nice big catch-lights to their eyes, which makes them look brighter, happier, and more energetic, is to use avery faint fill flash. I have found that from most distances, the fill flash mode on automatic cameras is either too over-powering--causing a flat 2-D effect--or too little fill, which doesn't help you open the shadows enough.
A better way to do this is to use an off-camera flash only--tilted straight up with a medium-sized white index card attached behind it as a reflector. If this does not open up the shadows because of not enough

 

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