Tangents

finding that photo opportunity

November 24, 2011

finding that photo opportunity

We stumbled upon this opportunity for this portrait of Jessica, my infamous assistant with an attitude. The reception room for a wedding we were photographing had several large boxes of lights against the walls as a kind of light mural, with baubles inside that were lit up. And the back of each of these displays was a mirror …

… and if you stood close enough to photograph the reflection through the light spheres, and you carefully moved around to frame your subject, you could get captivating portraits like the one above. Magical!

An aperture of f/1.4 on the 85mm lens made sure that nothing else but Jessica’s eye closest to the camera, was in focus. Of course, I had to move as well to not get myself in the camera’s frame.

camera settings: 1/60 (handheld) @ f/1.4 @ 3200 ISO
Nikon D3S (B&H); Nikon 85mm f/1.4G (B&H)

Finally, I used a combination of filters in the RadLab action set to give the image more of a vintage look.

Simply beautiful.

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7 Comments »

Considering picking up the Radlab software in tomorrow’s sale, how do you find it?

I’ve used TRA LR actions and never been *that* impressed, but this seems more effective.

Comment by Colin Tuff — November 24, 2011 @ 5:53 pm
Colin … I have numerous action sets that I’ve bought over time. As with them all, I don’t use every option within the available sets, so I tend to favor a few. Of the action sets I used, I consistently went back to 3 or 4 of the TRA actions – such as Oh Snap!, which is a favorite for giving images some bite.

With the RadLab software they’ve expanded the selection .. but most importantly, they’ve made the actions stackable, and you can record your own recipes. And that is what I did there .. I used my own recipe called “Vintage”. So that is nice, in that you can really finesse how you use the various actions in the RadLab action set.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — November 24, 2011 @ 6:20 pm
Absolutely love the lighting Neil. Great shot :)

What a find!

Oh, Jessica the ‘Tude’s’ hair, love the color change. *Thumbs Up*

Comment by Trev — November 24, 2011 @ 8:10 pm
I was hoping you got a pic of Jess with Blonde hair :) stunning as usual. I hear it’s already been changed though.

Comment by Anthony — November 24, 2011 @ 9:22 pm
Awesome Portrait Neil!

Comment by Brian — November 24, 2011 @ 9:54 pm
Don’t show the Bride this image! It’s too beautiful. She’ll be envious that you didn’t get any of her the same way. It really is quite beautiful, and The Tude looks her usual, sultry self. Great image.
Oh yeah, Happy Thanksgiving!

Comment by Jerry — November 25, 2011 @ 3:40 am
That is not only a portrait. It is a proof of a wonderful relation established between you and her. A trusted relation full of emotion and belief.

Thanx for sharing
Klaus

Comment by Klaus — November 25, 2011 @ 3:40 am