stockie's imago

I had these shots of Sofea during Ted Adnan’s Outdoor Portraiture Lighting Workshop.

There are strand of leaves flowing at the side of her cheeks and I gotta clone that. I didn’t do a very good job at it, thus I gotta blurred her facial skin tremendously to cover-up my poor cloning job.

After completed, I find it quite satisfying except that I’m not a big fan of super smooth skin-job.

Whaddya think? Not a bad job right!

Given that I am noobie in portraiture, I posted this to FB and tag a sifu and he critisized something that I totally overlooked. (Thanks Zam)

You can guess? (besides the super-smooth facial skin)

Yes? No?

The comment is I touched-up the cheek so nice but forgotten about cheek-bone! The side that I touched-up seems flat!

O boy! If I didn’t ask for the comment, I might not notice that at all!

It’s takes experience to notice such small detail as that coz from my landscape point-of-view, the scene is flawless!

Bwah ha ha ha ha .. I guess, from now on, when I take portraiture, I gotta constantly bugging them for pointers!

Let’s take another example,

This is an IR shot. Off coz some adjustment been done but not so much. As usual, channel mixer to swap color channel. Then I fiddle with Hue & Saturation. I changed the hue to make the tone almost earthy natural.

Again, I’m quite satisfied with the result. Tone, contrast, highlight, shadow and the rest seemed ok to my eyes.

Another sifu commented. Wanna try to guess?

Notice the vein at the back of her hand? He suggested me to tone it down. (Thanks Eddie)

It may sound nitpick especially when the shot is from IR cam however in portraiture, those small small things are very very important! And I thanked him for the comment. So that I’ll be more cautious on my next portraiture shooting.

I’m not changing genre of preference but there is no harm to learn isn’t it? Afterall concept about light & shadow is still the same.

Last Saturday, CAL (Central Alpha Legion) had our monthly outing to Genting, mainly at the outdoor theme park.

Upon entrance, Swing (the name that I gave, wouldn’t care what’s the real name), attracts my attention. Hearing people shouting, the movement of the swinger, and blue sky as backdrop was gorgeous.

The question is, how can I capture this and still feel all the above?

Few elements for me to include:

1. Dynamic movement
2. Blue sky
3. Part of the swinger for identification
4. Dynamic blur of people on the swing
5. Moment where people shouting, either enjoying or terrified.

And I came out with this:

ISO 200 | 11mm | F22 | 1/125s

There are few other shots prior to this but none to my satisfaction.

Composition :

I carefully find an angle where the movement will come-in-from or goes-off-to corner of the frame. And for this photo, it came in from bottom-left and goes-off to top-left corner of the frame.

2nd Chance (If I were to shoot this again) :

I’d compose it from the other side to have cleaner background. Possibly during clear sky at late noon. Perhaps some silhouette shots as well!