More Portraits from 2012

These are a few more of the portraits I’ve taken over the last months. I’m pretty pleased with how they’ve turned out, for the most part. This first one is of a friend of mine, taken at a birthday party. It was part accident, in that he was moving his face across the lens at the time, but the focus worked almost perfectly (could have been tighter on the eyes) and I loved the unusual, spontaneous crop and intense depth of field that resulted- so much detail on the face and such a strong connection with the lens. Nice one, Isaac.

I like this shot. This is T., and he’s a happy baby right here. And look at all that cute baby-fat. Getting these photos took a little effort. We were indoors, in an overhung porch area, so the light was low and therefore getting the little tykes to sit still long enough to be photographed without going blurry was tricky. Additionally, getting the right focus, with shallow depth of field and a wriggly child, was a definite challenge. It paid off for me on this one though. Such a cute face, and I like the texture of the little red chair he’s hanging off as well.

This is my buddy whose daughters I posted photos of in my last set of portraits. On his home in suburban Phoenix, they keep a clutch of hens, a dog, a cat, several goats, and three gorgeous kids. They also have a horse. Timing is everything, and I love the timing of this shot- a little moment of affection, which the horse seems to be relishing. Technically, the picture is sharp and well lit, with the background thrown out a little by depth of field. If my buddy was looking at the camera, his eyes would be in shadow due to the harsh overhead sun, but in this case, it doesn’t matter as much, because (unusually for a portrait) in this moment, the eyes are closed. I personally like this shot because it tells a story, and one that shows a side to him that even I haven’t really seen before; when we were growing up, he was never particularly into horses, but because his wife loves them, they’ve since become a part of his life.

This is my lovely wife. She won’t like me for posting this photo, because as she points out, you don’t usually capture someone’s best side when you photograph them from below. But I like this one, because I guess it’s a little unusual, and also because I love the halo of clouds behind her and the dramatic light. I guess it’s got nice connotations for me too, as we were on holiday at Wilson’s Prom at the time. But really, I just like how the shot turned out. And I like my wife

These two, P and C, are brother and sister, and cousins to T, above. C is freshly-baked, just four months old here, and P thinks she’s great. It was a very cute moment. My only regret for this little photoshoot was that the angle and the space I was shooting in didn’t let me get all three of them in their little chairs side-by-side. That, and the chance of getting all three little ones looking at the camera at one time and looking vaguely happy? Seriously, I don’t know how professional portrait photographers do it.

Oh, well they use those little squeaky ducky things, don’t they.

This is Steph. Steph is awesome. If you know Steph, you know she’s a free spirit, full of character and energy, and a genuinely fun and lovely person to be around. I think this photo captures a little of that spirit. Sure, you can’t see her eyes, and that’s a downer from a portraiture perspective. But she’s got such a big smile on her face that communicates that sense of fun that I think it matters less.

This might be my favourite portrait of 2012. Visiting a dear friend and his family in Savannah, Ga., a couple of months back, I managed to gatecrash a family reunion. Being the resident photographer on hand, and seeing as that meant they could all be in the pictures together, I took some group photos for them- not my forte as a photographer, but I guess it’s all about learning, right? After the shoot, K. stepped away with her daughter and I managed to get this image of them together. It’s a lovely, tender moment, utterly natural and unposed, and I love the affection on K’s face, as well as the crisp focus on the subjects and the almost featureless, blurred out background. You can click on this picture to view it larger.

I’ve featured my step-daughter on my blog a bunch of times- because although I don’t put too much personal stuff on here, she’s a photogenic little thing and a lot of fun to photograph. In fact, there were pictures of her up on this blog long before she was my stepdaughter. I’ve referred to her variously as M., or more recently, as my wife has taken to referring to her over on her blog, as Magic. However, I’ve recently decided that from now on, she will be called Tangled. For the uninitiated, Tangled is Disney’s latest Princess movie, featuring Rapunzel, she of long blonde hair fame. It’s actually a very cute movie- probably my favourite of the Princess cartoons (yes, I’ve seen a bunch of them now…), and because one of my step-daughter’s most prominent features, together with her bubbly personality, is her epic mass of tangled blonde hair (tamed like it rarely is in this photo), I think it works. The movie Tangled is one of her favourites too, and people who’ve seen it often tell her she reminds them of Rapunzel, so all up, that’s the way we’re going with this for now. These two shots were taken in Thailand. In the one above, she’s getting stuck in to a serve of whipped cream on top of her banana smoothie, definitely a preferred past-time. In this last one, she’s giving us her puppy-dog expression, which is generally synonymous with her being very excited about something (such as finishing off the whipped cream from a banana smoothie).

Yeah, she’s a real cutie.

A Few Recent Portraits

Sometimes I like to post photos and let people enjoy them as-is. Other times, I like to take them apart a little. This self-criticism is good for me- it helps me make decisions around how I take photos in the future and is a necessary part of growing in a skill. I hope it helps others out there who are experimenting with photography as well. I’m entirely self-taught, so if I get things epically wrong, please forgive me. I welcome your own thoughts & insights as well- all that stuff helps me as a photographer too.

This is Seven. She’s daughter of my best mate growing up, Andy, who now lives in Arizona. As you can see, Seven has a thing for cats. Here she is on a Saturday [Caturday?] morning, all dressed up and complete with tail, ears and shoes to match.

Taking a portrait requires balancing a bunch of different facets. Ultimately, a good portrait needs to portray something of the humanity of the subject (assuming you’re shooting a human). That’s the ‘intangible’ aspect of the photo. On top of that, of course, there’s the technical aspects- lighting, focus, depth of field, and so forth. Somewhere in there, you want the photo to tell a story.

For me, that’s the growing enjoyment I find in taking portraits- finding that balance between art and science, between the spiritual and the technical. This isn’t the greatest portrait ever taken- but it is a fun one, and the technical aspects have come together nicely as well. Lighting-wise, the most critical aspect is the face. If you get the face lit right, pretty much any other blemish, flaw or downright catastrophe of light in the photo can be forgiven. Here, the image has been balanced for Seven’s face. It’s a sunny day, so having her in the shade where the light wouldn’t blow out her skin or cast her features into deep shadow was a must. I’ve used a shallow depth of field to isolate her from the busy background. This can be a matter of choice and context. Sometimes the background adds to a photo’s story, and other times it detracts. Here, I like that she’s sharp and in focus, while the backdrop falls away.

For the intangible, the photo has a sense of fun which Seven’s own happy spirit brings to the frame. She’s a little bit cheeky, exudes confidence but just the right amount of shyness as well. She’s proud as punch of her outfit which, as it happens, is also eyecatching and breaks her out from the background even without the shallow depth of field. She has a happy smile on her face- all in all, everything you want from a quick snap.

If I were to look for ways to improve this photo, the major one would be her eyes, which don’t stand out or pop in this image. It’s said over and over- because it’s the basic tenet of any portraiture- that it’s all about the eyes. She’s looking at the camera here, and her eyes are in focus, and she’s got an expression that supports the story in the photograph- but for it to pop a little more, her eyes would need to be a bigger feature of this shot.

Enough analysis on that one.

This is Four. She’s Seven’s little sister. She also loves cats, but she doesn’t yet have a cat outfit of her own. So, when Seven puts on her cat outfit, Four constructs one for herself. She sticks little triangles of paper on a headband for ears, and transforms her hands into paws with the aid of a couple of colourful (and, essentially, non-matching) socks. The effect? Epic cuteness.

This is Magic, our seven-year-old, on vacation in country Victoria. She loves a good swing, and she loves her hair, too. It’s thick and long and blonde, and she loved having it braided in Thailand, and she loves people commenting that it reminds them of Rapunzel from the cartoon ‘Tangled’.

I enjoy taking portraits with shallow depth of field- no secrets there. For the most part it serves me well. On this particular shoot, the challenge was getting the focus just right- shooting at f/2.8 is very unforgiving, as a millimeter or two closer to or further from the lens will cause the subject to be out of focus again.

In this shot I like the texture detail in Magic’s hair, and that her face says she’s clearly abandoned to the fun of the swing. I like that the angle is a little quirky, and that while the only elements that are sharp are Magic’s face and hair, there’s enough of the background to tell you what’s going on. This was shot on wide angle, not normally the best way forward for portraits, as it distorts shapes, particularly near the edges of the lens. However here, that distortion equally adds to a sense of movement across the frame, and I like how it feels as a result.

This portrait of M & J is more of a posed affair- something I try and avoid where possible, as I find greater pleasure in the candid and natural, and I find it easier to catch someone in their true comfort zone. It often takes several ‘warm-up’ shots to get people to relax a little and you can get a more authentic image, and in this case this photo was the last of several that I snapped. Here I’ve gone for a more environmental image- in this case catching them in the surrounds of the stream-bed we’d just hiked down to. The light under the trees was slightly dim and diffuse, the latter a real asset when taking portraits. Your biggest enemy from a natural light perspective is strong overhead sun when shooting people.

I’ve used the 85mm lens on this one. You can work two ways with environmental portraits- get nice and close with a wide-angle (but run the risk of distorting your subjects), or use a telephoto lens, but back away enough to still capture the surrounds. This flattens the image a little and keeps the subjects a little more true-to-eye. It also gives you more control over depth-of-field. DOF gets less and less pronounced the wider the angle of the lens you’re shooting with, and to compensate you need to get closer and closer to your subject- adding distortion. Backing away like this, you increase the in-focus portion of the image (important if you’ve got people stacked one behind the other as in this shot) but still employ enough blurring to the background to break them out of it a little. However the background here isn’t so blurred that it’s just green fuzz- you can still see trees, ferns, rocks and the stream sharply enough to know exactly where they are.

A bit of critique on this one: M’s face is in some shadow and her eyes considerably lost in it. This is where a little hit of fill-flash would really work wonders- or, if it’s more up your street (as it would be mine) a reflector.

This is Magic’s cousin. Here, he’s scrambled up into a nook behind a waterfall where vibrant green moss is growing. I like the shot. Cousin M is an energetic, boisterous and adventurous kid, and this shot captures some of that, with his attitude-pose, ballcap and the outdoor setting. On the other hand, he’s got a slightly serene look on his face, a moment of calm and even shyness that isn’t usually present. I like the unusual pose- it was just how he ended up perching naturally- and the way the dim background is coloured so differently from him means that even without a shallow depth of field, he stands out nicely from it. The light coming in from the mouth of the overhang illuminates his face naturally, and gives you good optics on his eyes.

This is Magic again, celebrating two gummy lollies at a party. I like the look of celebration captured on her face in the moment, and that it, to the exclusion of all else, is in sharp focus. I also like the way her cardigan creeps into sharp textured focus, and back out again.

This is Ames. I like this photo. She’ll hate me for posting it, which also adds to its appeal. But I like the colour, the focus, and the sense of life about it. It makes me smile. And I guess that’s all that you really want from a photo, once the shutter falls.

Baby Photos? Really?

Well, I guess being around home in Melbourne has given me a bit more time to hang out with friends and family, and one thing that has definitely been happening to a lot of my friends is… babies. Just at that age I guess. So I’ve spent a bit more time taking shots of them.

As those who’ve followed my blog and photos over the years know, portraiture is a newer venture of mine- probably something I’ve only really started to branch into over the last few years. Baby portraiture, even more recently.

Babies are an interesting thing, photographically speaking. On the one hand, they don’t move too fast, so it’s fairly easy to frame them up. On the other, it can be hard getting them to look at the camera- and even harder to get them to smile when they do. I haven’t mastered that technique yet, that’s for sure. Patience when taking photos of babies is a must.

As always with portraits, the number one thing, above all else, is to get the eyes right. You want them to be clear, sharp, open and expressive. They also need to be lit properly. I always prefer natural light over flash photography, and candid portraiture over posed. But the best thing about photographing babies is, in my opinion, that they don’t have any of the reserves or veils that people get when you take a photo. Their eyes express pure emotion. That emotion may simply be ‘what the heck is this thing being stuck in my face?’, but it’s honest nonetheless- there’s none of the facade that big people tend to put in front of their faces.

I enjoyed taking this lot, and I hope to get many more opportunities.

Faces from a Guatemalan Village

We visited the tiny hamlet of Pavantslom high up in the hills behind Huehuetanango.  The road was a treacherous unsealed pathway of hairpin bends above panic-inducing drop-offs without so much as a fenceline between the wheels of the Land Cruiser and a five-hundred foot roll.  The hills themselves were dusty and badly eroded- a combination of geography and natural resource management.  It was hot.

Guatemala’s brutal civil war left the country’s soul badly tattered, and fear in many rural communities is rife.  I was told the villagers here hadn’t had a white visitor in years, and there was an element of disquiet and even distrust to begin with.  ML, my colleague, is a Honduran- both the most passionate and most competent community mobilizer I have ever met.  I have worked with her in at least six countries in Central and South America, and everywhere she goes she is able to inspire local people with her words and her attitude.  Her subject of expertise is community-based disaster management- encouraging communities to take measures to identify the risks they face, and then put into action a plan to reduce those risks.  People who have spent their lives planting maize in a radius of two miles from their birthplace stop and listen to her because she knows how to engage them, how to relate to them.  I’ve watched her do it equally in remote hillside villages and in urban slums, and her fluency in the vocabulary of poverty humbles me.

It took a little while for people to let me take photos.  During the civil war, people with cameras came to mountain villages like Pavantslom, and shortly afterwards, children would disappear.  I waited to be invited to break out my camera, and even invited people warmed to the camera to varying degrees.  By the end of the shoot, mothers were asking me to take photos of their children- but it took them a good half an hour to get around to that point.

Relating to people through the lens is always a dance, and this photoshoot was actually one of my first with a proper portrait lens.  Indeed, I still wouldn’t consider myself an experience portrait photographer today- although I have considerably more experience than I did two and a half years ago in these hills just south of the Mexican border.

I enjoy the variety and intensity of expressions that came through the lens that day.  Not always beautiful in a typical sense of the word, but certainly beautiful in the soulful sense, I think the reason I like this shoot so much is the lack of pretense.  The gazes are full of honesty, and unlike shoots you do in many other parts of the world where people are used to cameras, here there was no sense that people were putting on a display or trying to be vain.

I’m not travelling for a few months at the moment- at least, not for work- and my opportunities for doing portrait shoots such as this one are a little more limited.  I think I’m sharing this shoot as much for my own wistfulness as any other reason, but I hope you can enjoy travelling through the expressions captured here.

Fifteen Seconds Behind a Speed-Boat

I shot the following series of images in a few seconds’ worth of action down 200m of a tropical seaside river-lagoon the other day with my buddy playing on a monoski.  He complains that his weight is too far on his back foot, but it all looks pretty fun to me.  The frozen water-patterns are one of my favourite features- the ones in the last shot are my favourite, it’s too bad that you can’t see his face.  At any rate, I’m hoping to head out with the guy again in the next couple of weeks, especially as it looks like I’ll be out here a little while longer, so maybe get some more shots…

Click the pics to see bigger versions…

The pics were all taken with my Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM.  For those that know the lens, it’s a macro lens that works great as a portrait lens on the 1.6x crop-factor sensors like the EOS 400D, but certainly isn’t a custom-built sports-lens.  I found myself wishing I had the 70-200mm f/2.8 L that I’ve got my beady eye on, but which is stretching the budget a little right now, especially if I hope to find a place to live when I get back to Australia.  I reckon though if I’m going to keep up some of these water-sports I might just have to bite the bullet.  After all, my round of kite-surfing shots were pretty disappointing, but that promises to be a good avenue for some fuuun photoshoots.