Jan van Huysum

I wanted to retry portraits photography now that I'd looked at photographers Eve Arnold and Diane Arbus. I took the photos on my camera and used a black screen I did this so I wouldn't have to worry about what was in the background and could just foucs on the person and the lighting. 

I'm not use to doing portraits so I wanted to play with the different settings of my camera till I found one that I was happy with.  

have a flash on got rid of the softness of the other light

using a short shutter gives me the lighting I wanted but with out using a tripod the picture was coming out blurred.

I found a setting that works for what I wanted.   The images were just a bit on the dark side but I liked how the light was hitting her face so I adjusted the lighting.   I moved my model back so there was more empty space in the frame.   I also moved her to the side with her face facing towards the light.

I still felt like the photos were a bit dark so I turned the lights up some more but it became too bright again.  I decided to keep the lights dark and edit them later to the brightness I want.


The kind of photos I wanted to take were the type you might see on a magazine cover or head shots.   This time I took photos of Maddy because I know her better which makes it easier to tell her what I want her to do.

To get the lights to hit parts of her body and face I had to get her to turn to the light with her chin down so her jaw was more defined.  I edited the brightness and shadow as well as making the images black and white, I did this to get rid of the yellowness of the pictures and to give them a more of a finished  look.

Closeups  

I wanted to try closeups as I think there on more personal. 

I took photos of Maddy laying down with her legs extended towards me making them look longer. 

Although the photos don't look bad they are not what I was wanting, I think if I had had the light more on her legs or even if the light was a bit brighter it might have worked better. The light being focused on her face manes to can't really see her legs. Again I edited the photos in the same way as the others, I did this so the photos all had a similar look to them.