Post your Portrait shots!
- Thread starter Rick M
- Start date
singlerosa_RIP
Senior Member
A friend's son on graduation day. She brought him by my house for a quick photo.
Here is one taken with a single light,with slow shutter to get the dim lights of the street and balances with a direct flash. This is my GF on the roof of the art center next door from our apartment in the city center of St Petersburg late one night. D800, 64mm (24-70 2.8)f/4.0. 1/25/sec ISO 400, SB-900. This was totally unplanned, we had attended an art exhibition and discovered the roof access door was unlocked so went up to see the view at 11pm just before it was to close.
Here is another of the single light casual shots in restaurants....My friend was just arriving, late as usual, to a dinner meetup and I got this just before she sat down. It was the first people shots with my new 85 f/1.8G I have an older 86 1.4D but got the 1.8 for the light weight and small size and discovered it is every bit as good as the 1.4 but much lighter. The lens is very sharp but this image is slightly out of focus because she was right at the min. focal distance. A second later I moved a few inches back and got a crystal sharp image but I preferred this dreamy diffused version. D800 f/1.8, 1/60, ISO 200, flash full manual 1/128th power trying to balance the lights in the background with her face. Most of my friends here are young women and many of them I met by taking a candid photo or attending an event, Julie is a doctor, 41 years old, I met at a ballet performance. Her hobby is rock-climbing. Strange how girls like this have a hard time finding a partner, but if she was in the west she would be a hot item in great demand, smart, funny, successful and fit with a great figure, with a lovely soft speaking voice. She thinks she is too old to attract a man of quality. Guys her age are looking for a 25 year old. I should not be hard on them, my GF is 1/2 my age.
More of the single light casual portraits, again taking dining with a friend, Katrina at a dinner party with a few friends. Katrina is a former track and field star, 400 meter champ long retired, 37 yo but still beautiful. She is a mechanical engineer now, and works for a heavy industry outside sales Engineer for gigantic pumps. She looks cute in her pink hard hat when traveling all over the world to big dam and hydro projects
I tried to capture the ambient light matched the color temp with gel on the flash that is key light to the frame left. These are all shot full manual for both flash and exposure. I dialed in -3 exposure spot metering on her frame right cheek and added the flash on 1/64 power 10 feet to frame left. 1/100, f/4.0, ISO800. She is from Siberia, everyone I ever met from Siberia is a special person, all seem to be warm, sincere, honest, caring, and health oriented and with great soft sense of humor. Her passion is travel both for work and pleasure, her current total is 37 countries. We met on the dance floor 4 years ago and remain close friends, even after stopped dating, because I sort of settled down with a GF. Unlike most 400 meter runners she is not tall, 5'5" and not overly developed legs like most elite middle distance runners, she had a figure more like a ballerina than a sprinter. Lovely girl, lovely personality and humor, always smiling.
I tried to capture the ambient light matched the color temp with gel on the flash that is key light to the frame left. These are all shot full manual for both flash and exposure. I dialed in -3 exposure spot metering on her frame right cheek and added the flash on 1/64 power 10 feet to frame left. 1/100, f/4.0, ISO800. She is from Siberia, everyone I ever met from Siberia is a special person, all seem to be warm, sincere, honest, caring, and health oriented and with great soft sense of humor. Her passion is travel both for work and pleasure, her current total is 37 countries. We met on the dance floor 4 years ago and remain close friends, even after stopped dating, because I sort of settled down with a GF. Unlike most 400 meter runners she is not tall, 5'5" and not overly developed legs like most elite middle distance runners, she had a figure more like a ballerina than a sprinter. Lovely girl, lovely personality and humor, always smiling.
I shoot in dance clubs that I like, the photos are given to the people in them and the club which puts them on their web sites for promotion. Usually just go to dance but if the dance floor gets too packed, I give it a rest and pull out the camera. There are two most desired stills of image clubbers like, glam and action. Action are usually done with shutter dragging, say 1/10th of a second so ambient lights,lasers, fog, light trails, and sweeps are well exposed, with blurred action of background people but the flash on rear curtain freezes action of the target subject. Glam are almost always girls vamping and trying to look seriously aloof or "duck lips" which I tend not to indulge them in. I would rather get candid ahots with a 200mm lens to catch them when not aware of the camera so not posing. These two are typical of a recent club shoot. There are high iso to get more ambient light in crowded background.
All the shots I have posted could have been taken with a D90 and kit lens(if zooms in for blurred background. The key is light not camera.
All the shots I have posted could have been taken with a D90 and kit lens(if zooms in for blurred background. The key is light not camera.
As an illustration of lower res camera doing fine with even cheap lenses, there are two older shots I took with a D90 and kit 18-105 lens at 105mm and SB900 flash
The two blondes are my two favorite dance buddies, the beauty on the right is a great dancer, both are best buddies from childhood, so we go out often together to dance clubs
The two blondes are my two favorite dance buddies, the beauty on the right is a great dancer, both are best buddies from childhood, so we go out often together to dance clubs
Blade Canyon
Senior Member
Can you help me explain to my wife why I'm coming to visit you in St. Petersburg for a week?
............ She thinks she is too old to attract a man of quality. ......
QUOTE]
Wow, if I was single, I would be on a plane by tomorrowlayful:
A week? That is what I said....still here after 16 years:>)
The women are a treasure, so many really nice, rational, feminine well grounded, highly educated women who take care of themselves. Western women accuse Russian women of dressing and acting to appeal to male oppressors. I hear that all the time by the angry women in the US and UK who put down Russian women because they dress well and are stylish. They miss the whole point, women are in charge of their lives, they don't have to compete with men to get rights or beat them over the head because for over 100 years they have had total equal rights, equal pay(actually more), equal education(actually higher) and positions of power(more businesses and large agencies are headed by women than men). Rights and gender are not connected for them, they can do as the prefer, that is prefer to emphasis the differences between men and women, not their sameness. They prefer men to be different than women, since rights and security are not being battled for, which means men are not the enemy like in the US.
Because they are not afraid of men, or seek approval for rights,their relationships are much more focuses on human issues, not economic or power issues. That makes it nice to have female friends, and it is very easy to meet anyone you like. If you are polite and well spoken with something interesting to say you can engage any woman you see in conversation and be accepted, ANY. One the street, in a museum, in a pub, or cafe. Very different, much more pleasant social interaction.. You would not find anyone without at least a college degree and almost all my friends have university degrees, the highest rate of degrees in the world. Pop into any English style pub or wine bar or dance club, or drama theater and you will see more woman then men. Not sure why men are less socially out and about, maybe sitting home on the computer but even a sports bar with have 65-80% woman present, usually with a few of their girlfriends.
That changes the dynamic in a club a great deal. I have been going to clubs and bar for decades and never seen a fight, or even an argument. Back in the US I stopped going to dance clubs because fights and guns are very common. But in general few people go out in the evening in the US, most are home, TV or home theater is still very big I guess. TV is not something people over about 12 and under 45 do with their time. With 54 classical music, opera or ballet theaters, 330 drama theaters, 340 English pubs, 11,000 restaurants and hundreds of music venues for jazz, rock, blues etc, and a couple hundred dance clubs, the sidewalks are filled until at least 3am but many stay out to when they close at 6a.m. Everyone one of these and a hundred others volunteered to meet again with their phone number or email and have become friends. I will be 68yo in less than 2 weeks, and this is my GF: A very stylish, but down to earth lawyer and a second degree in PR and now my business partner. I am more the party animal, she prefers doing yoga, fine dining, and cooking....
1 week you say? Bet not you would find an excuse to stay longer...you have an excuse, there are 354 museums in this one city, often cited as the most beautiful in the world.
The women are a treasure, so many really nice, rational, feminine well grounded, highly educated women who take care of themselves. Western women accuse Russian women of dressing and acting to appeal to male oppressors. I hear that all the time by the angry women in the US and UK who put down Russian women because they dress well and are stylish. They miss the whole point, women are in charge of their lives, they don't have to compete with men to get rights or beat them over the head because for over 100 years they have had total equal rights, equal pay(actually more), equal education(actually higher) and positions of power(more businesses and large agencies are headed by women than men). Rights and gender are not connected for them, they can do as the prefer, that is prefer to emphasis the differences between men and women, not their sameness. They prefer men to be different than women, since rights and security are not being battled for, which means men are not the enemy like in the US.
Because they are not afraid of men, or seek approval for rights,their relationships are much more focuses on human issues, not economic or power issues. That makes it nice to have female friends, and it is very easy to meet anyone you like. If you are polite and well spoken with something interesting to say you can engage any woman you see in conversation and be accepted, ANY. One the street, in a museum, in a pub, or cafe. Very different, much more pleasant social interaction.. You would not find anyone without at least a college degree and almost all my friends have university degrees, the highest rate of degrees in the world. Pop into any English style pub or wine bar or dance club, or drama theater and you will see more woman then men. Not sure why men are less socially out and about, maybe sitting home on the computer but even a sports bar with have 65-80% woman present, usually with a few of their girlfriends.
That changes the dynamic in a club a great deal. I have been going to clubs and bar for decades and never seen a fight, or even an argument. Back in the US I stopped going to dance clubs because fights and guns are very common. But in general few people go out in the evening in the US, most are home, TV or home theater is still very big I guess. TV is not something people over about 12 and under 45 do with their time. With 54 classical music, opera or ballet theaters, 330 drama theaters, 340 English pubs, 11,000 restaurants and hundreds of music venues for jazz, rock, blues etc, and a couple hundred dance clubs, the sidewalks are filled until at least 3am but many stay out to when they close at 6a.m. Everyone one of these and a hundred others volunteered to meet again with their phone number or email and have become friends. I will be 68yo in less than 2 weeks, and this is my GF: A very stylish, but down to earth lawyer and a second degree in PR and now my business partner. I am more the party animal, she prefers doing yoga, fine dining, and cooking....
1 week you say? Bet not you would find an excuse to stay longer...you have an excuse, there are 354 museums in this one city, often cited as the most beautiful in the world.
dh photography
Senior Member
Color version of my favorite May shot. Took some morning snaps of the misses before her hair makeover that afternoon. There was a start stylist in from NYC and my wife was selected to get her hair and makeup done. I'll get some better "after" shots hopefully in the next few days.
edit - resizing these does a number on the quality. Ugh.
Blade Canyon
Senior Member
Oh, St. Petersburg RUSSIA? I thought you were in Florida. LOL, but it sounds like a great life.
Yes, I am really lucky, have been able to do a million things over a wide range of experiences in my life that was out of the ordinary still have a great time. Yesterday shot a 6 hour master class in cooking....my GF's girlfriends got together and booked a master class for them all as her birthday present. It was supposed to be 3 hours but ended up lasting 6 because everyone including the chef and staff had such a great time. Six girls and I created a great 4 course meal guided by the chef in a very well set up teaching kitchen, a case of wine and excellent ingredients from the chef of the Four Seasons Lion Palace Hotel. 400 photos.
Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
Hope you don't mind but here's your first shot after a very quick touch-up and with a 4:5 crop. Just one way to approach it:
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RocketCowboy
Senior Member
Overall, I like both of these images, but the crop that has been suggested is a better overall composition.
The only thing I'm missing on both of these are catch lights in the eyes, which gives me the overall feeling that the eyes are too dark of a shadow.