12.20.2020

Fujifilm X-T4 + XF23mmf/1.4 R: 1/250s, f/2, ISO400

Every once in a while I get asked to take portraits for people. It’s always an honor, a privilege, and to keep it 💯: a bit of validation that someone can rely on me to produce something for them. This photo session was a fun little challenge for me. This was the first time I had been to this park so I arrived a few minutes early to do a quick location scout. First, I want to anticipate where the sun will be throughout the session and whether it’ll be diffused, obstructed, or direct. Next, I make a quick mental list of complimentary or non-distracting backgrounds and objects. Lastly, I determine which, if any, lighting tools I can and may want to use during the session.

I was a bit discouraged after the quick scout. While the clear attraction of this park is its elevated, unobstructed view of the harbor, it wasn’t an especially attractive portrait background with a crowded playground and occupied asphalt basketball court there. The grass was untrimmed which I didn’t mind, really, as the strands glow beautifully when backlit and out-of-focus, but thick clouds prevented the sun from lighting them up. It was gusty enough to leave the large umbrella and V-flat in the car, leaving just the Magmod tools. That’s one less potential background and the modifiers most flattering for larger groups. This was a real test indeed.

For the family photo, I thought the grass was a good non-distracting background. The sun was behind the clouds, and the way the hill tilted, I had to face the family toward in the direction of the sun. I set up a bare flash with a ½ CTO (color temperature orange) gel on it to light the grass like I had hoped the sun would. It turned out a bit more directional than I had hoped, even when putting the magsphere on the light.

The sunset colors began to show in the sky, so we did solo photos next which my lighting tools were better suited for. I put the Magbox on a light stand, chose “wide area tracking” autofocus mode and face recognition activated for the kids since they tend to move. I set my Aperture wide to blur out much of the distracting background elements and used a neutral density filter on my lens to compensate for the flash-limited shutter speed and wide aperture quantity of light. This worked well in theory, but caused a host of post-processing challenges in practice. I also, unwittingly targeted the “fashion angle” (camera slightly below chin level) which caused the background horizon levels to be different for each sisters which looks less good when the photos are next to each other. This problem is exacerbated in the next photo collage…

Fujifilm X-T4 + XF56mmf/1.2 R: 1/250s, f/1.4, ISO160

Due to my limited lighting resources discussed earlier, I thought a “Brady Bunch” family collage portrait would produce the most flattering results. Together we came up with this set of fun expressions. Each portrait involves the magbox as a key light and a bare flash as a rim light. If I were to do a set like this again, I think I would try to keep each subject at the same level so the backgrounds are more similar.

The sun was sinking below the horizon by the last set, and the family wanted a few photos with both girls together. I decided some red and green rim lights would add some holiday flare to the photos. It’s all thanks to the photogenic family that these photos turned out adorable!

I don’t write about post-processing too much in these posts. I won’t dry your eyes out here either, but I picked up a few new-to-me techniques in this series that remind me just how amazing software is today! Shout out to “Smart Sharpen” in Photoshop, and “LumaRange” and “Color Editor” in Capture One Pro.