Another Saturday afternoon, another portrait session. This time for senior
portraits of this guy who probably never wore anything but t-shirts his
entire life. Not exactly comfortable dressing up in any way, and even more
uncomfortable being in front of a camera. It definitely turned out to be
one of the more challenging shoots I've had. Knowing that studio shots were
pretty much completely out of the picture, we did exclusively shoot
outdoors.
Camera of choice was my defacto-standard portrait camera, the E-1. I was
going to shoot film at some point, but recognized a situation which would
have not been film friendly at all. He went through a series of facial
expressions which were driven by the number of flashes from the camera. It
took a sequence of a half-dozen shots to get one that worked. Grand total
of 292 pictures were taken. Not exactly my cup of tea, but you do what you
must.
>From a technology perspective, there were more challenges. We started out
in midday sun. Not a cloud in the sky. After about an hour a high haze
layer kicked in which lowered the ambient exposure about half a stop. Not
much, but enough help. We utilized open shade whenever possible. Given
other issues (wind, no assistant), I used only the T45 on-camera with the
Rogue FlashBender. ALL flash exposures were manual at either full or half
power. 292 shots and the battery wasn't slowing down at all.
Lens choices? I used only the 100/2 and the 35-80/2.8 lenses. Oh, forgot.
Did use the 300/4.5 for some shots at the airport. Unfortunately, those
were definitely a rough slog as I had to try and balance ambient light (the
runway stretched out behind him--in a compressed view, but the sun was
shining almost directly behind him) and flash. Had I shot with a shorter
lens I could have made it all work, but I didn't have a high-enough flash
sync speed to keep the background from blowing out.
The 100/2 is such an amazing portrait lens. The 35-80 smokes almost
everything out there, but the 100/2 is brutal sharp. Even wide open, it's
zit city. Serious photoshopping to follow. I had hoped to use film for some
of this, but not to be. Tonight's portrait session (indoor, senior
citizens) would be wonderful to take with the 100/2, but I'm kinda
wondering if that's such a good idea. :)
The old combination of equipment worked. It was wierd that I couldn't get
the exposures dialed in at first. Too many variables fighting me all at
once. It's not like this was my first dance, but it was one of those cases
where I changed up ONE item and it just threw me for a loop. So, the first
15 shots were a situation of a "Blonde Monday". It was one of those days
where I would have loved to have had either an assistant to hold a
wirelessly triggered flash closer to the subject or have had unlimited
flash-sync speeds.
Results on the computer screen look pretty good. I'm pleased and I know his
mom and dad will be too. (they know their son well enough that I was
sufficiently warned that it would be a bit of a challenge). I've worked
with OCD/ODD children enough (I'm an example of what happens when one goes
undiagnosed/untreated), that I could work with him. Using longer
focal-length lenses really helped matters a lot because I was able to get
far enough outside of his space-bubble.
AG
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