{"id":2033,"date":"2012-06-25T23:24:06","date_gmt":"2012-06-25T14:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2012-06-25\/2033"},"modified":"2012-12-19T11:14:30","modified_gmt":"2012-12-19T02:14:30","slug":"trying-a-little-formal-portraiture-round-1-stephane-barbery-shoots-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2012-06-25\/2033","title":{"rendered":"Trying a Little Formal Portraiture, Round 1: St\u00e9phane Barbery Shoots Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>800 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 400 —\nimage data<\/a><\/span>\nMe<\/span>\nphoto and processing by St\u00e9phane Barbery<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I have some confidence behind the camera, but none in front of it, and\nthat's pretty hypocritical of me if I want<\/span> others to be comfortable in\nfront of my lens, so I've decided to do something about it.<\/p>\n\n

In particular, the various videos by master headshot photographer Peter\nHurley<\/a>, such as this two-hour seminar<\/a>\n(kindly sponsored by B&H\nPhoto<\/a>) have got me interested in doing more portraiture.<\/p>\n\n

I'm pretty confident shooting things like flowers<\/a> and mossy temples<\/a> and pseudo-candid family\nstuff<\/a> and the occasional passing planet<\/a> or kick-ass lady archer<\/a>, but\nreal formalish portraits are a different,<\/span> alien world. Sometimes I happen<\/span> to get\nlucky (I like<\/span> this shot of Paul Barr<\/a>),\nbut having no clue what I'm doing sort of hinders things in general.<\/p>\n\n

So, with one viewing of the Peter Hurley video under my belt, I got together<\/span> with St\u00e9phane Barbery today to give it a try,<\/span> with me taking shots of\nhim, and he of me.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>640 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 400 —\nimage data<\/a><\/span>\nphoto and processing by St\u00e9phane Barbery<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

St\u00e9phane has appeared on my blog a number<\/span> of times,\nmost recently teaching a lesson<\/span> with humble pie on my disastrous Mt. Hiei hike<\/a>. His photos<\/span> appeared on my blog several years ago, in\n\n“Delighting in a Chasm<\/span> Between Artistic Senses<\/a>”\nand\n“Kyoto Jidai Matsuri Photos by St\u00e9phane Barbery<\/a>”,\nand now again today with these shots he took of me.<\/p>\n\n

We started with me taking photos of him, so I had<\/span> to decide the lighting\nand such. We had Nikon<\/span> speedlights that we didn't know how to use,\nreflectors, umbrellas, and a big<\/span> window feeding gorgeous cloudy-day light. I tried<\/span> all kinds of combinations and was not happy with anything I saw<\/span> on\nthe back of the camera, despite my model being quite handsome.<\/p>\n\n

I hadn't expected this much difficulty.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>1000 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 400 —\nimage data<\/a><\/span>\nphoto and processing by St\u00e9phane Barbery<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

The two-hour video I cited above was actually quite depressing for me to\nwatch because it made it clear that technical skill with the camera is not\nwhat makes great portraits, but, rather, the human aspect: being able to\nquickly develop a personal<\/span> rapport with the subject that allows you to\nfigure out how to make them feel comfortable, and how to draw out from them\ntheir best look. This is not good news to a computer<\/span>-programmer geek who prefers\nto be separated from the subject by a beefy<\/span> lens.<\/p>\n\n

So, I expected<\/span> that part to be difficult, and it was to the point that\nit became comic relief. But what I<\/span> didn't expect was how hard the light was\nto do (though since I'd never really done something like this, I should\nhave<\/i> expected the difficulty).<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>640 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 400 —\nimage data<\/a><\/span>\nMy Wife Hates This Kind of Shot<\/span>\nand my mom will certainly leave a comment<\/span> telling me that I need<\/span> a shave<\/span>\nphoto and processing by St\u00e9phane Barbery<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

Anyway, I was shocked<\/span> when I got<\/span> home and looked at the photos in Lightroom, the ones that I took<\/span> of St\u00e9phane. They were amazing<\/i>. I was very<\/span> happy with the results.<\/p>\n\n

I'll share some of those when I can,<\/span> but for this post I'm showing a few<\/span>\nthat St\u00e9phane took of me in the few minutes that I left<\/span> for him to shoot. I probably<\/span> would not pick these shots, nor process them like he did, but\nthat's part of the fun mentioned in the “Delighting in a\nChasm<\/span> Between Artistic Senses<\/a>” post.<\/p>\n\n

And, of course, if I want others to trust me with photos, I must have<\/span>\nexperience trusting someone taking\/selecting\/processing photos of me.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>800 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 400 —\nimage data<\/a><\/span>\nphoto and processing by St\u00e9phane Barbery<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I wanted to present his photos and processing exactly as he provided\nthem to me, but I had<\/span> to make one small change: in one shot I felt<\/span> that it\nlooked like I had<\/span> cataracts, so I toned<\/span> down the brightness on the eyes\nconsiderably.<\/p>\n\n

Much practice will be required before I even<\/span> start to have a clue,<\/span> both\nin front of the camera and behind. We may try<\/span> again tomorrow... we'll\nsee.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have some confidence behind the camera, but none in front of it, and that's pretty hypocritical of me if I want others to be comfortable in front of my lens, so I've decided to do something about it.<\/p>

In particular, the various videos by master headshot photographer Peter Hurley, such as this two-hour seminar (kindly sponsored by B&H Photo) have got me interested in doing more portraiture.<\/p>

I'm pretty confident shooting things like flowers and mossy temples and pseudo-candid family stuff and the occasional passing planet or kick-ass lady archer, but real formalish portraits are a different, alien world. [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2033"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}