ianmendel

Class of 2020 Lilly's Senior Portrait

Senior portrait taken with a mix of natural light and fill flash

Senior portrait taken with a mix of natural light and fill flash
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Michigan, US

upload_date

Nov, 2019

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Awards

2020 Choice Award

Outstanding Creativity

Top Choice

Absolute Masterpiece

Superb Composition

Peer Award

Top Ranks

Top 30 rank week 1

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Same photographer See all Behind The Lens

Color coordinated to the max! ðŸ˜†ðŸ’•ðŸ‘Œ

Our beautiful twins! They were three years old in this photo last year

Our twins walking in the woods holding hands

Behind The Lens

Location

I took this photo at the subject's family home. I wanted to utilize the beautiful soft natural light coming in from a dining room window. The utilizing a large window on an overcast day is the perfect way to get a large natural soft box to light your subject.

Time

The photo was taken in the late afternoon on a chilly November. I am a fan of utilizing natural light so the late afternoon sky was overcast and provided the perfect soft light that was needed.

Lighting

I believe that shooting with as much natural light can bring out the natural beauty of your subject. It creates a soft light overall, but does have its challenges. Since we were inside a dining room I had Lilly get as close to the window as possible to light her. I noticed it was getting too unbalanced on the shadow side of her face so I first tried a white reflector to bring up the light on her face. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to create a balanced look so I took out a flash and placed it in manual and tried several different adjustments to fill in the shadows, but not be too harsh. It took some adjusting, but the final result was very pleasing and didn't look like a standard studio photo. I recall I also needed to move her seat further away from the portable backdrop when I introduced the flash because it was adding a dark shadow behind her.

Equipment

The photo was shot with my Canon 5D Mark III, a 70-200 2.8 L lens, Canon 580 Speedlight, Gitzo Carbon Fiber Tripod, Portable background stand with gray muslin backdrop. I also brought my Apple 15" Macbook Pro Laptop for reviewing images on site which was helpful to see what we were getting and we made adjustments accordingly based on the large screen vs the 3" LCD on the camera.

Inspiration

I must admit I am a Architectural, Night, Landscape, Travel, and Stock photographer. I take a lot of people photos of my beautiful twin toddlers but am rarely asked to do portrait work. I was asked by Lilly's Mom who was in a bit of a panic since the photos were due for the yearbook the following week. We were under the gun and she told me that her daughter hates to have her photo taken. I was pretty nervous driving to their house and having never met Lilly I had no idea how the photo shoot would go. I got set up in the dining room and took some test shots for exposure etc. I was confident we could get some beautiful shots by the window. When I was ready Lilly came into the room and seemed pretty apprehensive of taking the photos, but we tried some test shots and as she became more comfortable with the camera and her natural smile showed and we were really able to get some terrific photos. We reviewed the first 10 shots or so and this one particular photo seemed to be the one. We all agreed that it would become her yearbook photo and it wasn't necessary to try for additional shots. I did mention when it got to be summer we could try some outdoor ones for a variety and I truly hope we can do some because she has such natural beauty and is very grounded.

Editing

I did use Photoshop to do some color corrections and adjustments in the lighting. I really didn't need to do any retouch work except for some stray hairs and I brightened the eyes slightly and adjusted the skin tone a little.

In my camera bag

My workhorse camera is the Canon 5D Mark III which has been absolutely stunning. I do both video and photos to which the 5DMark3 is perfect for with the full frame sensor and incredible low light capabilities. I carry a Canon 17-40 F4 L lens which is perfect for my wide-angle photos on my travels and real estate shoots. I am never without my Canon 70-200 2.8 L lens with a 2x teleconverter it is perfect for low light shooting with the bright 2.8 aperture but the tradeoff is it is pretty heavy to lug around. I also have an 85mm 1.8 Canon lens that is useful for portraits and close up work to really blur the background. On trips I bring my Apple 15" Laptop and 2 Lacie rugged portable hard drives to download and archive my photos.

Feedback

I believe that learning the fundamentals of photography are key. I learned with developing black and white film, shooting slide film, and shooting medium format film years before I picked up my first digital camera in 1999: which ended up being the 6MP Nikon 990 point and shoot. All this technical knowledge about exposure, subject matter, shooting long exposures, and experimenting by constantly shooting gave me the necessary foundation to apply that knowledge to the digital realm. I can now look at scenes and by looking at the light falling on the subject I can make all these calculations in my head and then get the instant feedback from the lcd on the camera. However, since I know the fundamentals I can adjust things that aren't working so that I can make the best image possible. One last piece of advice is to constantly challenge yourself to learn new skills, create self-challenges to keep your creativity flowing, and research the past pioneers like Ansel Adams, Galen Rowell, Annie Leibovitz, Andre Kertsz, Dorthea Lang, and the thousands of others that came before us and offered a glimpse into the world they were living in. We need to document our current lives and showcase the good, the bad and the ugly so others can one day look back on our images and gain a better sense of what it was like living when we were alive. My daughter told me she wants to be a photographer and it warms my heart to see her passion for something that has made my life so rich and beautiful.

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ianmendel

ianmendel

Class of 2020 Lilly's Senior Portrait

Senior portrait taken with a mix of natural light and fill flash

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow ianmendel

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