{"id":2195,"date":"2013-01-26T14:08:24","date_gmt":"2013-01-26T05:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2013-01-26\/2195"},"modified":"2013-01-26T14:12:01","modified_gmt":"2013-01-26T05:12:01","slug":"portraiture-practice-ray-and-jill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2013-01-26\/2195","title":{"rendered":"Portraiture Practice: Ray (and Jill)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 1800 —\nimage data<\/a><\/span>\nRay<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

High-school friend Ray was the second portraiture-practice\nsession<\/a> I did<\/span> while visiting my folks over\nthe new-year break, the first having been a family friend. I like<\/span> the results from the first session, but I didn't<\/span> like that I was<\/span>\nstill so awkward\/skill-less on how to conduct, on a\nperson<\/span>-to-person level, the portraiture session. Technical skill\nwith the camera accounts for maybe 10% of what's needed... the rest is all\nin how you interact with the person.<\/p>\n\n

Shoving a lens in someone's face and saying “smile” may work fine if the\nsomeone is a professional<\/span> model, but it sure makes normal people feel\nawkward, something not conducive to photogenic results.<\/p>\n\n

This time I had an epiphany: even if I feel<\/span> awkward\/skill-less on how to do it,\npretend<\/i> I know<\/span> exactly what I'm doing. The confidence-building effect on the subject should be the same.<\/p>\n\n

So, I went over to Ray's house and talked a bit<\/span> about taking a picture,<\/span>\nsurveyed the living room for a good<\/span> angle, then set up a silly<\/span> shot to break the ice:<\/p>\n\n\n

\nNikon D4 + Voigtl\u00e4nder 125mm f\/2.5 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/4, ISO 6400 —\nimage data<\/a><\/span>\nDeep Thoughts<\/span>\ncontemplating life's mysteries with Bloom County<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n

But after that I moved into stealth mode, just chatting about\nwork\/life\/kids\/etc while I snapped<\/span> pictures, more or less omitting the\nwhole photo thing from the conversation except for the occasional “look\nthis way” or the like.<\/p>\n\n

So not only did I get to catch up with an old friend, during the normal\ncourse of conversation I got<\/span> all kinds of looks for the camera (mostly laughs), and he\nseemed to become more comfortable. Then at the end we could try some specific looks.<\/p>\n\n

\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 1600 —\nimage data<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 1250 —\nimage data<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

It was a different experience with his wife, Jill. I pointed<\/span> the camera\nat her, she flipped a switch<\/span> that turned on a beaming<\/span> fashion-model, and I\ntook,<\/span> literally, two frames, and we were done.<\/p>\n\n

\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/2, ISO 2000 —\nimage data<\/a><\/span>\nJill<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I missed focus on this frame of the pair (I need<\/span> to not forget about the\n“10% technical skill part”!), but one can sort of hide that with a bit<\/span> of\n“funky joy<\/a>” negative\nclarity in Lightroom, something you can really do with a guy's<\/span>\nportrait.<\/p>\n\n\n

\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 1800 —\nimage data<\/a><\/span>\nSquare<\/span>\nversion of the lead photo\nas might be useful for an online avatar\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

High-school friend Ray was the second portraiture-practice session I did while visiting my folks over the new-year break, the first having been a family friend. I like the results from the first session, but I didn't like that I was still so awkward\/skill-less on how to conduct, on a person-to-person level, the portraiture session. Technical skill with the camera accounts for maybe 10% of what's needed... the rest is all in how you interact with the person.<\/p>

Shoving a lens in someone's face and saying \"smile\" may work fine if the someone is a professional model, but it sure makes [...]","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\/2195"}],"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=2195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}