Reflection
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
— William Makepeace Thackeray
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
— William Makepeace Thackeray
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— William Makepeace Thackeray
Read less
Apr, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken at my friend's (one in the pic) place. The idea was to do a royal portrait and the moment I saw the wall and the setup I knew what my shot is going to be. There was a big window to the right side of my model which helped with the lighting.Time
We started our shoot at around 11 am and since it was indoor with plenty of natural light coming from the window the set up was more than perfect for us. This picture was clicked around noon. We did this shoot in parts as we had 2 kids to deal with :)Lighting
This picture was shot indoor and the big window on the right side of the model was my key light. The room was very well lit with natural light already but I also used a flash on the opposite side to deal with the shadows and also to get the right exposure. Once I figured out an exposure for the daylight then the flash light was added in manual mode to balance the exposure and to cover up the shadows. Overall the natural light itself helped a lot with this picture due to the big window, reflective flooring as well as the light colored wall on the opposite side and the ceiling.Equipment
Camera: Canon 60D Lens: 24-105L F4 Tripod:Manfrotto MKCOMPACTACN-BK Flash: Canon Speedlite 430ex Tethered shoot with McBook Pro, Canon Utility and Lightroom. This helps me to figure out small mistakes which normally I can't see on the small screen on the back of my camera. Like the hand position, wrinkles on the clothes or small issues with make up or overall image sharpnessInspiration
Our theme for this shoot was a royal portrait. Main thing that I had in mind for this photo shoot was to give it a very painterly look. To do that I had to make sure it's properly lit and the window light mainly took care of that. I saw a moment between mom and daughter which I felt was just right and didn't want to miss.Editing
The post processing was done using Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. To begin with overall exposure was corrected in Lightroom mainly the shadow and highlight adjustments before I opened this image in Photoshop. In PS, first thing to correct was to extend the background and flooring. Window on the right side of the model was in the frame so had to be taken out. Also there was too much of light on the floor that I had to tone it down a bit. Once the image was clean of all distractions, first thing I did was the skin softening and then dodge and burn using level/curves. Mainly I used levels to correct overall exposure to enhance highlights and shadows. Once the overall image adjustments were done in PS, opened this image in Lightroom for the final color adjustments. Used a predefined vintage preset in LR to start with and then small adjustments to it to achieve this final lookIn my camera bag
Canon 60d is my primary and only camera that I have :) Canon 85mm 1.8 is what I end up using for 90% of the time and in addition to that I have Canon 50mm 1.8, Canon 100mm 2.8 L, Canon 24-105 F4 L (my second most used lens) and Canon 18-200 kit lens. Canon 430ex Speedlite Panasonic Enelop AA Batteries and charger USB cable for tetherred capture McBook Pro 13inch Speedlite Color Gels Remote stutter release switch Manfrotto MKCOMPACTACN-BK tripod Reflector setFeedback
The original picture looks good too but this look was achieved mainly as a result of editing. Painterly look is what I had in mind for this shoot and the same was achieved during the post process. Mainly it was the enhancement of shadow/highlight and overall exposure correction and then the color toning. To capture something similar I would choose the right outfit, well lit indoor area (natural or studio light), perfect backdrop and obviously perfect models :)
