Marta
This portrait is part from a project called ''All Humans Ar Beautiful''. This project shows people with their natural loks without makeup or...
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This portrait is part from a project called ''All Humans Ar Beautiful''. This project shows people with their natural loks without makeup or high end postproduction.
Read less
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Mar, 2020Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken in Aveiro - Both, mine and Marta's hometown. It's part of a project (''Al Humans Are Beautiful'') and I wanted a clean environment, so I could focus on her alone. Natural light, natural environment.Time
A few months back I started this project about the natural beauty of all humans as a protest against the social media and fashion & beauty industry in general. I opened this project to everyone as a challenge to anybody who wanted to take the leap and strip out of makeup, filters or any other body change. Just people, raw and natural as they are. Despite this being an open project I obviously invited some friends I thought would make great portraits as a starter to also motivate others to do the same. And this is how I got to Marta. We were already long time friends, we're both Martas and we have a lot in common. She wasn't very convinced at first as she, like anybody else, has insecurities but I was pretty sure she would make wonderful portraits, and I finally managed to make her see her own natural beauty. She pulled some strength together, she confessed that was actually the time to to cross the line on new stuff and to challenge and love herself more - and this is how I had the pleasure to get my gorgeous friend Marta in the project.Lighting
I wanted a sober look, not some warm sunset highlight on the subject, so I specifically picked a cloudy day, I love gray days, they are like a huge softbox nature just created for me. I've waited for the sun to go down a little bit in the after noon (after some time geting warm up with her) and took advantage of the soft light from a sunset on a cloudy day - no shadows, no highlights, just flat and focused on the textures and colours of the subject - skin, eyes, hair, the expression...Equipment
I used a Nikon D800e and a Nikkor 80-200 F2.8. I'm not a huge fan of lenses under 70mm for portraits. I always use a zoom lens, because I can get a nice dept of field even if I need to use lower apertures, no face distortion and distance - apparently everyone likes to be super close to the model when shooting portraits, I don't. I like to give the person some space, I still can be close enough to give guidance while shooting and the model or in this especial case, a common human being, still gets some privacy and her/his own space. This makes all the sense to me, especially when most of my subjects on this project were actually having their first photoshoot ever and most of them were really breaking out from personal trouble and trying to challenge themselves out of the comfort zone.Inspiration
I didn't want to close people on a studio, I wanted them to feel in Nature, I wanted people to breathe air and have some wind going through the hair, natural light and natural reflexes on their eyes, I wanted them to feel pure and to have their own space as I previously mentioned - that had to be explicit for the viewers as well. I haven't done all the shootings for this project in this exact same place, but I've brought my subjects here more than once. Is a calm and clean place, I always come back. I think it's also worth to say this project has a lot of psychology and prep talk behind. You don't just go out and start shoot shy and insecure people in the middle of the street. Before, After and during this sessions, I've shared insecurities, stories, and tears. People always came out of this stronger, more confident, and with a feeling of inner growth, with a feeling that they are actually more beautiful than they ever realized before. Most of this people were terrified to get in, they still were in the beginning of the sessions. There's a lot of work done with people that has nothing to do with photography behind the scenes to get people to looks at me lens like this.Editing
As the project says, ''Al Humans Are Beautiful'. Of course there was some post-processing added to it, most shootings were done in cloudy days, so exposure had to be adjusted, a bit of color and sharpness, just the regular stuff - I also take some redness out of the the skin, sometimes people blush to much eather because it's hot or they are just nervous at some point, slightly took out some pimples because I don't consider them as something that belongs to the person's face everyday, it's not their beauty mark or so, it just decided to appear a day after the photoshoot. But mostly I haven't retouched skin and I obviously haven't change a thing in peoples face, I actually pop up any visible beauty mark. In this particular case, Marta has a very flat skin so despite it looking a bit unnatural, it's her own skin really, she mostly used a bbcream and that's all.In my camera bag
As I photograph essentially weddings, portraits and pet portraits and since I'm a professional equestrian photographer, my main kit consists of my D800e body and zoom lens 70-200 F2.8, and sometimes a B+W filter. I also bring my Nikkor 35mm F1.8 for weddings, and sometimes I like to play around with my SB-800 speedlight and an octagonal softbox. I'm not a huge fan of artificial light so I mostly work outdoors with natural light. I also like to bring around a Tokina 11-16 2.8 for landscapes and some crazy perspectives. When it comes to studio, for objects, plants, product and others alike, I like to do my own props since I'm very used to build and work my stuff since I was a teen, especially when it comes to wood. Since post-processing is at least 50% of the job (to me), I think it's also worth to talk about my editing setup: I don't use laptops for editing, I built myself a tower and I like to edit on a Gaomon PD2200. I work with photomanipulation and digital painting for 15 years now, so a graphic table and Photoshop have been my tools since ever, even for photography editing, it gets quite handy to get a graphic table.Feedback
My advice is the same for everything and everyone on art community - Before jumping into search for inspo and tutorials, please get to your tools, explore them to the limit, play around with them, use and try even the tools/functions you don't think you will ever need on your camera and software - you never know how they can come handy sometimes. Don't follow rules, break them (not all, of course). I didn't have tutorials when I started and I've never watched them, I created my own rules, my own canons, my own techniques. What and how everyone else's is doing might not fit you and that's absolutely fine! Make your won way, get your own results. Stop going for trending! The younger generations stopped being creative, everyone follows and copies someone, don't go trendy, go creative! Artists don't copy, they create. What you need, is a signature, and I must advise: it can take ages. But it's worth it! ''Your fist 10K shots, will be the worsts ever'' - this is how I was introduced to photography. I worked around it and I'm thankful to whoever told me that.
