{"id":4245,"date":"2010-04-25T09:59:27","date_gmt":"2010-04-25T07:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/?p=4245"},"modified":"2010-05-31T22:51:38","modified_gmt":"2010-05-31T20:51:38","slug":"my-first-attempt-at-portraits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/archives\/4245","title":{"rendered":"My First Attempt At Portraits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night my husband and I went in to Den Haag to meet up with some other photo club members for an evening of portrait photography.\u00a0 I have been looking forward to it for quite some time because I really like the social gatherings of the group and because I wanted to try to dip my toe into the portrait pool, which I never have before.<\/p>\n

You may remember me mentioning this in the past<\/a>, but I\u2019ve always been intrigued with taking photos of people.\u00a0 Usually people on the street but I\u2019ve been keen to try portraits at least once, so last night was a good chance for me to have a go at it.<\/p>\n

\"Images<\/a><\/p>\n

Quite a lot of people showed up, which was not a big surprise as Al<\/a>, the guy who organized it, usually has no problem getting people together for his outings.\u00a0 Probably because they always seem to be so much fun, which is why I wasn\u2019t going to miss this one!<\/p>\n

We really lucked out with the weather, as the sun was still shining and it was warm enough to just wear a t-shirt when we arrived at 6:15pm.\u00a0 Some people had set up a picnic and were already starting to shoot when we got there.\u00a0 It was such a friendly and relaxed atmosphere that even my husband, who didn\u2019t know anyone when we arrived, had no trouble chatting and making friends while he was there.\u00a0 He also had a lot of photos taken of him by the other members.\u00a0 My husband\u2026 the model!<\/p>\n

While he was busy striking a pose, I walked around trying to snap photos and figure out what I was meant to do with my camera.\u00a0 Portrait photography is a lot more difficult than I had imagined.\u00a0 There are so many things involved!\u00a0 Mainly the light, posing your subject, trying to get a clear focus, exposure locking, metering, angles\u2026 GAAAAH!!\u00a0 Overwhelmed much?<\/p>\n

I also found myself in one of those rare moments where I become totally shy.<\/p>\n

Shut up, I may not always seem like it but I can be shy from time to time too ya know!<\/p>\n

Anyhow, I found it hard to get all up in people\u2019s faces and take their photos.\u00a0 Others would just walk up and say \u2018Can I take your photo?\u2019 then people would say \u2018Sure!\u2019 and off they\u2019d go doing their thing.\u00a0 I was the person skulking along behind them shooting from under their elbow or next to their ear, trying to mooch off their session rather than creating my own.\u00a0 This ended up with me getting mostly photos of people looking off in other directions, which also works in portraits of course, but only if that is what you are going for.\u00a0 Thankfully, I wasn\u2019t the only one.\u00a0 Most would see one person posing for someone and then flock like vultures just like I did.\u00a0 So I didn\u2019t feel terribly bad for my model mooching.<\/p>\n

\"Images<\/a><\/p>\n

I struggled a bit (a lot) in regards to the lighting.\u00a0 A lot of people were taking photos with the subject backlit without using reflectors and I ended up quite confused because when I would try to do the same, I\u2019d end up with my subject exposed ok or completely washed out and the background was totally overexposed.\u00a0 It\u2019d look a little something like this (blech):<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a><\/p>\n

Please excuse my husband\u2019s death glare\u2026 he doesn\u2019t really want to kill me (or does he??<\/em><\/strong>), that\u2019s just what his relaxed face does.\u00a0 We have that argument all the time when I\u2019m trying to take photos of him.<\/p>\n

Me with camera in hand: Stop looking so grumpy!<\/em><\/p>\n

Him: I\u2019m not!!! This is my relaxed face!! ARGH!<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So he basically has two modes when in front of the camera.\u00a0 Smiling and I KILL JOO!!<\/em><\/p>\n

Sorry, off topic there for a moment.<\/p>\n

I went to one of the more experienced guys and asked them about the whole back to the sun issue.\u00a0 He explained that some are going for that sort of backlit halo of light look, but that you can use the light however you want.\u00a0 He also reminded me that the light is quite strong at the moment so it\u2019s easy to end up with overexposed bits.<\/p>\n

I figured it made most sense to have people facing the light, or partially facing the light so I started trying to catch people like that instead.\u00a0 Still peeking in around people while they nailed down a model, of course.\u00a0 There is only one photo that didn\u2019t require a moderate amount of fussing in Photoshop when I got home.\u00a0 It happens to be my favorite.\u00a0 That can\u2019t be a coincidence.<\/p>\n

\"Images<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure who the little girl is, the daughter of one of the club members I assume.\u00a0 She was so cute though and I just loved her freckles.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure there are things I could have done further in PS to make it have more pop but that\u2019s a whole other learning process.<\/p>\n

I got some other photos which did end up requiring some fixing up in Photoshop, but I think that\u2019s all a part of shooting in RAW<\/a>, fixing things like the exposure and contrast later.\u00a0 So I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s something I\u2019d consider a bad<\/em> thing, although some require drastically more adjustments than others and some were completely unfixable.\u00a0 So the fact remains that I\u2019m still a total n00b.\u00a0 I did get some that I like, even though I\u2019m sure there are many things technically wrong with them, I still like them.<\/p>\n

\"Images<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Images<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Images<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Images<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Images<\/a><\/p>\n

Awww, look at that face, how can I not love him to the ends of the earth and back? Seriously.\u00a0 It could be because of the slight smile, leading me to believe that he may not want to kill me afterall.<\/p>\n

I got a few more photos, but not loads.\u00a0 You can see them in my Flickr set<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I learned a lot last night, mostly that I still have a shitload to learn about photography. Here is what I walked away with:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I really need to learn more about light, how to position the subject and get them from the right angle.<\/li>\n
  2. Reflectors are your friend!<\/li>\n
  3. Don\u2019t be shy about asking people if you can take their photo. Especially in situations like this where it\u2019s meant for it and people expect it. Ugh! I\u2019m such a dumbass\u2026<\/li>\n
  4. I need to read more and find a way to really understand my camera and what it can do.<\/li>\n
  5. Stop comparing myself with other people in the club with vastly more experience as it\u2019s discouraging and pointless.<\/li>\n
  6. Ask questions until I understand. My photo club friends really don\u2019t mind sharing their knowledge if they can.<\/li>\n
  7. Find projects to make learning easier and more fun.\u00a0 Like this cool project<\/a> that Al decided to do when he started organizing last night\u2019s meet-up, or the \u2018look straight at me and look bored\u2019 project Michiel<\/a> was working on.\u00a0 It gives you a purpose and helps you have a reason to approach people, as you have a goal to be met.<\/li>\n
  8. Practice, practice, PRACTICE and then practice some more dammit!!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I do enjoy photographing people more just as they are going about their day to day lives, but I would really like to try this as well.\u00a0 When I see the truly great photos that come from other club members I know that one day I\u2019d really like to be able to do that.<\/p>\n

    I can\u2019t wait until the club has another outing like this again, I\u2019ll be there with my confident, got-a-project-in-mind, lemme take your pitcha!<\/em> hat on.\u00a0 I also can\u2019t wait to see the photos they took of me!\u00a0\u00a0 Oh yes, that\u2019s right, I had my 15 minutes of model fame too.\u00a0 It was fabulous!\u00a0 Perhaps I should contact Tyra\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Last night my husband and I went in to Den Haag to meet up with some other photo club members for an evening of portrait photography.\u00a0 I have been looking forward to it for quite some time because I really like the social gatherings of the group and because I wanted to try to dip …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[35,308,52],"class_list":["post-4245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-photography","tag-friends","tag-photo-club","tag-xander"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4245"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4249,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4245\/revisions\/4249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}