CLASSIC PORTRAIT OUTDOORS – SHY CHILD

I’m sure most of us have photographed shy children at some stage in our careers. Some run away, some hide and some cling to their parents for security.

This pretty little subject was very shy and would rather hang onto her dad than be photographed on her own. I did achieve some images on her own, but in this post I would like to show you, that not all is lost if you can’t get them to be independent from their parents.

First, find the light, look for subtraction of light (trees, walls, buildings etc) and check the background (avoid overly bright highlights).  In this case I placed the father and daughter under the edge of a tree to subtract light from the top, to avoid dark eye sockets. The tree trunk and her dad’s body is subtracting light from her right hand side, creating shadows to form shape/contour to the face.

A square image helps with the cropping of the father.

The next image shows a quick overview of what post production is required before converting to black and white.

Next is to remove the father from the image.   His face was cloned out. You could clone and burn in his shirt, but I felt a better result for balance, would be to add an arm/shoulder to her right hand side. So I made a duplicate copy _ flipped the image horizontally _ made a rough oversized selection (lasso tool) of the arm/shoulder area _ copy and paste the selection to the original image _ rotated the selection to fit _  then used a layer mask and brushed the excess areas away to blend.

PORTRAIT TIPS: Before converting to black and white I prefer to finish the colour portrait and save it. You never know when a client may ask for a colour image, even though they booked a black and white session. I don’t want to redo all this again.

Simply make a duplicate copy for the black and white conversion.

The portrait was converted using NIK Silver Efex Pro 2 including the border and (coffee) toning. In this case study, I used the “soft sepia” preset and used the adjustment sliders to further enhance. (structure slider for hair and a control point  to bring up the shadows and detail in the clothing.)

The grain slider in the Film Styles was adjusted to suit. I like a more gritty film like look.

 I like to use texture screens with this style of portrait when I feel it will enhance the image. In this study I added the screen below. I prefer the texture to be less intense over the face, so I brushed the texture on the face back to suit my taste.(each to their own, there’s no right or wrong)

PORTRAIT TIPS: I added the screen twice for more effect. Just vertically flip or rotate the texture screen so the texture is more randomly spread across the image. 

The image below is another using the same technique, but without the texture screen. This time I included her father. Although it would have been easy to remove him, I felt he emotionally contributed to the portrait.

I hope this has helped you and any time you are in a similar situation, you can try these portrait tips and techniques.

Happy shooting and until next time,

Cheers

Wayne

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