First Formal [IMG in reply]

So yesterday was my first try at real portrait photography. Armed with my DL, 50 f1.4, a borrowed tripod (mine isn't very sturdy) and my sunpak hotshoe flash, I set out to photograph my girlfriend's sister and her friends prior to their freshman homecoming dance. I learned quite a few lessons yesterday about photography (particularly about what the Pro guys put up with everyday). Here's what I learned:

1.) Keeping the attention of 14 year old girls is difficult. Keeping their attention when their parents are also trying to get it is impossible.

2.) Camera setup is crucial. Our photoshoot went from an indoor setting, to outdoors and then back indoor when the rain came... In the rush to get inside and start taking photos again, I forgot to switch from ISO200 (which I was using with AV outside) to ISO400 (which I had a manual exposure pre-tested for before the event) and I forgot to change my white balance from cloudy back to flash... concequently, I had to PP a few of the last photos a LOT to get anything useful out of them.

3.) Arrive early and take practice shots on scene: This was key. I made bethany stand in the room I was told we'd be taking photos in and I took several pictures with her as I fiddled with the exposure, white balance and with bouncing my flash in different directions until I finally got the affect that I wanted. Without that prep-time, I would have lost several photos.

4.) Have help with posing. It was nice to have Beth there to help the couples with their hands and heads while I framed and focused... there was VERY little time allowed between photos, as the family didn't allow nearly enough time for everything.

I'm sure I learned a lot more than that, but those things stick out at the moment. I'll post some of them up in a reply and speak a little on a few of them individually. Hope you all enjoy.

--
Matt Paden
http://mpaden.zoto.com/

The day started off with a suprise as I was rushed off to the neighbor's house so Emily (in pink) was able to get some photos with her friend.

I was pretty happy with these pictues, as I just sort of showed up and 'winged it'.



Next, most of the girls showed up before the guys to take some indoor group photos. I didn't like the scene, but my vote for a different room was overruled. This scene made it very difficult to get a good photo, because too direct of a flash would cause a nice 'ghost' and shadow on the wooden entertainment center behind the girls. I made the best of the situation by bouncing my flash off the left wall/ceiling.



After some groups, the girls got playful with their posing:





Lessons from this part of the day: The number 1 enemy of mine in this setting was the 6 mothers/parents with P&S cameras all around me in the room. Not only would they steal the girls' eyes away from me just as I was composing a photo, but they would flash with their cameras constantly and it made a few of my photos wash out. One of the fathers even kept leaning over my camera. He never quite entered the field of view, but he did cover my flash with his arm on 2 occasions.
--
Matt Paden
http://mpaden.zoto.com/

The second setting for this photo shoot was outdoors, where we took a few more of the girls, and several couples shots. I'll put the groups up first, and the couples up in the next part:

The dog wanted to be part of the action too:





Lesson learned for next time. Black suits can cause overexposed faces:







--
Matt Paden
http://mpaden.zoto.com/

Ok and now some of the couples. I had some posing help with these ones from Beth. Up to this point, the parents kind of posed the girls however they wanted them (I didn't argue with any of the posing, even though I disliked some of it).

Emily and Adam:















I liked the way the couples came out mostly, except that I realize that the scene could have been better. The basketball hoops and the lightpost in the background distract the photos just a little bit. Thankfully, the FA50 f1.4 allows me to neutralize distracting backgrounds by limiting my DOF, so the photos weren't ruined by the distractions.
--
Matt Paden
http://mpaden.zoto.com/

Ok, so the last part of this post (sorry I've posted so many photos already).

The rain came and we went back inside. Like I mentioned before, I made the mistake of not double-checking my settings when we went back in. Here's how they came out:









And that wraps it up. After the girls left, Beth and I took a moment to catch our breath, then we ran off to the local Ritz Photo to have 4x6's printed and then put them in an album. (the salesman at Ritz made it a point to tell me all about their '6D' print size that I should use because it matches the digital sensor size.... which I laughed at)

Hope you all enjoy these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them, and I appologize again for the extra long post.
--
Matt Paden
http://mpaden.zoto.com/

Great post, great shots. Thanks so much for posting this fun set of images of an exciting time of these kids life. My only suggestion is that next time be more insistent on the shot location.....but that's out of your control. I really enjoyed the pictures.
Frank

Hello,

I cant comment about the pic qulity, but on the composition site all the pics will benefit from a tighter composition. There are too much of the background in the pics.

Thanks Frank. Like I mentioned in the post, the shot locations were largely out of my control. This was mainly because the whole thing was very hectic, and the parents kind of did things the way that they wanted to. I think if this were an actual paying job or something, I would have chose the location myself (there were a couple of trees that would have worked nicely) but as I was just there as a family member, I just sort of went 'with the flow' of the afternoon.
--
Matt Paden
http://mpaden.zoto.com/

Realy lovely pictures. You have many "keepers" thats for sure. The kids have a great expression and all dressed up they look very nice in front of the camera.

Some comments:

1) Use RAW!!! It's a must to use raw in these situations when you can't redo the shooting. If you forget to adjust iso and wb it's easily corrected in SW afterwards.

2) Pick better backgrounds. Do some research of the location beforehand and get them in front of a bush, on a bench, in front of a nice curtain, etc.

3) Insist on being the prime photographer

4) Try to capture air all around the subjects, not only above their head (which you have plenty of in some of the pictures), but also get their feet, arms and hands in the picture. You can always crop out uninteresting stuff but almost never add a missing hand.

But as I said I think those shots were just lovely

sh
--

speedie said:

Some comments:

1) Use RAW!!! It's a must to use raw in these situations when you
can't redo the shooting. If you forget to adjust iso and wb it's
easily corrected in SW afterwards.

Click to expand...

This is actually the first time that I've ever used .jpeg for a shooting. The reason I went w/ jpeg is that I took 143 photos, and I only have a 1gb card. I knew that I wouldn't have time to move the pictures to my pc in the middle of the event, and no other memory cards were available to me, so I was stuck with .jpeg.

speedie said:

2) Pick better backgrounds. Do some research of the location
beforehand and get them in front of a bush, on a bench, in front of
a nice curtain, etc.

Click to expand...

The scene was completely out of my hands (especially the indoor one). I had an orientation all picked out that put them in front of a closed bay window with wooden blinds pulled down... I wanted to have the couples sit on the bay and then take some standing with it... but I was overruled by the mother who was more worried about having the photos in front of the couch so the mothers could sit and take photos.

speedie said:

3) Insist on being the prime photographer

Click to expand...

I wish. There's no telling parents of 14 year old girls to hold off on their P&S cameras... not when its their little girl's big day.

speedie said:

4) Try to capture air all around the subjects, not only above their
head (which you have plenty of in some of the pictures), but also
get their feet, arms and hands in the picture. You can always crop
out uninteresting stuff but almost never add a missing hand.

Click to expand...

Yeah this was an interesting debate in my mind the whole time. The trouble was I wanted to stick w/ the FA50, to bokeh out the background, but I couldn't always get far enough back (especially indoors) to catch too much around the subjects.

speedie said:

But as I said I think those shots were just lovely

Click to expand...

thanks for the comments speedie. I'm taking this whole thing as a learning experience, and I look forward to doing it again at their next formal.

--
Matt Paden
http://mpaden.zoto.com/

--
Matt Paden
http://mpaden.zoto.com/

Matthew Paden said:

1.) Keeping the attention of 14 year old girls is difficult.
Keeping their attention when their parents are also trying to get
it is impossible.

Click to expand...

Do what baby photographer do with their brightly coloured cute little toys to wave in front of the babies! Get a nice picture of Ashton Kutcher with his shirt off and stick it where you want their eyes to go. They'll forget their parents are there!

Might not make the boyfrieds too happy though.

you have my sympathy - not an easy task with so many over-excited people to contend with.

I would use more portrait format shots and always make sure that full length shots get the feet in as well - especially ladies who love their shoes. You have naturally concentrated on the faces which means that these are central in the composition. This leaves a lot of empty space above heads. One way to help with this is to kneel down so that you are shooting from waist level. Even going on to one knee helps as long as you remain stable.

I think you have room to lighten the photos a little in PP. I hope you will forgive me having a try with one of your shots, using Lightroom. I have posted this to my pbase account to show it here but please let me know if you want it removed immediately.



I also adjusted the colour temperature to cool the shot down a bit as I thought it was a bit warm toned.
--
Steve

http://www.pbase.com/steephill

HAHA that's a pretty good idea! Seriously though, I think I'm going to try a little harder to communicate with the mothers next time... be a little more demanding in what is best to do I guess.
--
Matt Paden
http://mpaden.zoto.com/

steephill said:

you have my sympathy - not an easy task with so many over-excited
people to contend with.

I would use more portrait format shots and always make sure that
full length shots get the feet in as well - especially ladies who
love their shoes. You have naturally concentrated on the faces
which means that these are central in the composition. This leaves
a lot of empty space above heads. One way to help with this is to
kneel down so that you are shooting from waist level. Even going on
to one knee helps as long as you remain stable.

Click to expand...

I did have more success getting lower to the ground... I'll have to use that more often, thanks!

steephill said:

I think you have room to lighten the photos a little in PP. I hope
you will forgive me having a try with one of your shots, using
Lightroom. I have posted this to my pbase account to show it here
but please let me know if you want it removed immediately.

Click to expand...

Don't worry about it. I don't mind at all. I use PS CS to adjust the colors a little on some of the part 4 photos (not that one in particular). My method was a little different, as I desaturated the photo to get rid of the orange facial tone, then I brightened the entire photo by 20-30%. It's always nice to see how others would PP my photos though, because I have NO background in editing at all... so everything I know how to do comes from what others have told me and from messing around and reading tutorials and books.

steephill said:

I also adjusted the colour temperature to cool the shot down a bit
as I thought it was a bit warm toned.

Click to expand...

Thanks for taking a look Steve. Your comments have helped a lot.

steephill said:

--
Steve

http://www.pbase.com/steephill

Click to expand...

--
Matt Paden
http://mpaden.zoto.com/

Hi Matthew!

Great photos and a wonderful list of do's/don'ts/lessons learned. Considering what you were fighting (doting mothers, etc.) I'd say you held your own!

The only noticed was some of the backgrounds - like pole sticking through the girl's head in one shot. I know you couldn't control the posing, but maybe photoshop the pole out?

Well done!! What was the reaction from the girls, boys, and their parents?
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Tracy
9:31 PM

i liked them as well, my 2 cents are, white balance. even if you cant get it at the time of shot, fix it, dramaticly helps your photos. and #2 you cropped out the feet in some shots that i think would have been really quite good
--
Picture Of the Day
http://www.jaysoncraig.com/gallery/v/POD+2006/

First of all, I liked the pictures. I read some of the comments so far. Choose a different background to get rid of the hoop? Sure. Frame a little tighter to show more subject and less background? OK. However, sounds like you learned something which trumps all other issues and makes the experience a smashing success! Good job!

Stu

Hi Matt. Given the circumstances, I think you did very well as the photographer. For some reason, your comments below just push my hot buttons, forcing me to respond.

Let me preface my critique by stating that I offer it the spirt of constructive criticism. It is not meant to be mean spirted or any kind of attack on your prowess as an artist or photographer.

Matthew Paden said:

Ok and now some of the couples. ..

Click to expand...

pics snipped...

Matthew Paden said:

I liked the way the couples came out mostly, except that I realize
that the scene could have been better. The basketball hoops and
the lightpost in the background distract the photos just a little
bit.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you're understatement is purposeful or not but...

Matthew Paden said:

Thankfully, the FA50 f1.4 allows me to neutralize distracting
backgrounds by limiting my DOF, so the photos weren't ruined by the
distractions.

Click to expand...

The baskball hoop & lamp post skewering the heads of the lovely lasses and lads do ruin the pictures. Being OOF helps, but its not enough or not OOF enough. There's much to like in your shots, but serious flaws like these should not be casually dismissed. I'm not saying I would have done better. Most likely I would not have. But I would have worked hard with the cloning tool (or similar) to fix the problems before sharing these images had they been mine. Admittedly, I'm quite comfortable with such PP chores. If you are not, i hope the large improvment such an effort offers entices you to learn. If the latter situation applies, I'd be happy to fix one of these up as an example to show you how much better they can be. (These actually would not be too hard to fix except trying to remove the car in the 6th image.)

Best wishes & hope I haven't caused any hard feelings here.

-Mark

Saturday night I went through the exact same thing as you. We dropped our son off at one of the other parents home for a rondevous with the various other couples for the "Limo" pickup. Really nobody thought to bring a camera and those who did bring their P&S were not expecting to use it to any great degree. I offered to take some photos of everybody and post on the Smugmug site so they can view the results. All photos are with the Kit lens and if any flash was used it was the built-in. Below are some of the photos:













All shot raw with Silkypix, the only editing was cropping each to 5" x 7" and adjusting the sharpness with the script "absolute sharpening pro" set to minimum.
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http://hiltonphotos.smugmug.com