Images for comment...

[Andrew Shepherd]

I had a shoot this morning for a surprise present for a friend and I've uploaded my favourites onto my site. These are all straight out of the camera (apart from cropping). There are four siblings (quite an age gap) and the main aim was to get a photo of the four of them and one photo stands out for me as a favourite.

Would appreciate any comments - the link is here: http://www.redshank.net/galleries/paul-0208/

Cheers

Andrew

[Lee Bold]

Nice set of images, 2 really stand out for me the one with the little un holding the others hands, really like the crop of that one, and the other is the one were they are not looking at the camera apart from the little one. really relaxed and not so posed as the others, alls it needs is to clean up the background in the top right hand corner.
Super shots
Lee

[Paul Jones]

Hi Andrew and thanks for posting your images for comment.

I've not much experience of shooting family groups, but from the ones I've done I know that it's not so easy to get everyone relaxed and looking their best. I think you've done a reasonable job of capturing the moment and I'm sure the family will like the results. My favourite is the three looking at the little girl.


Looking at the images with a photographer's critical eye, I have a couple of observations though...

1) RELATIONSHIP
I don't really get a strong sense of the relationship between the four people (siblings). I think there could be more a sense of 'togetherness'.

One of the ways to achieve this is through composition and interaction and how you pose the four people together to show that they are part of a family. So, rather than have four people in a straight line you can arrange them to make a more pleasing shape and show that they care about each other.

Also, if it's a planned shoot, you can think about outfits and try to have them all wearing clothes and colours that blend together well (though perhaps having the little one in colourful attire actually works well here to make her stand out). For example, I recently photographed three sisters and asked them all to wear similar coloured t-shirts and blue jeans.

It's just little things that can make a difference.


2) LIGHTING
This is just a minor point - there are no hard and fast rules of lighting as such - but I think, if you have space, you could do with raising your main light higher. I noticed this particularly on the one-light portraits.

Raising your light gives you:
= more pleasing lighting pattern
= more pleasing catchlight in the eye (eg at 11 oclock rather than 9 oclock)
= more pleasing shadow (eg small loop shadow under the nose rather than stretching across the side of the nose and face)
= can also help to a degree with seperating the top of the head/hair from the background.

I hope that this has helped and not been too critical.

You will find the "Lighting Technique Forum" on DPReview quite useful in terms of helping you with lighting (and arranging) portraits/family groups and other subjects. Here's a link to it:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1025


Best regards

Paul

[Andrew Shepherd]

Thanks for the comments - my favourite is the one you've both picked out, all three looking at the little girl. This wasn't posed and I was chuffed I caught it.

Paul - I think the idea of wearing the same clothes is a great idea - I'll have to remember that for the future.

Many thanks for the comments - much appreciated.

Andrew

[pammie]

I prefer the 3rd row down and 5th across, I think this is the one Lee means too.

Pammie

[Andrew Shepherd]

Thanks Pammie - the postcard viewer re-shuffles the images when you load (which is a pain) - hopefully we are all talking about the same image!

Andrew

[Lee Bold]

Re shuffling theres never a straight way round with this internet malarchy.
What program did you use to create the website
Someone might be able to help
Lee

[Andrew Shepherd]

Hi Lee - it was automated in Lightroom and, after looking at the settings, I've now included the filename as a reference.

Cheers

Andrew

[Theo Dibbits]

My favorites are 57-edit and 130.
I know the fashion these days is to leave a load of black or white background but I would try a different crop on the one light/black background ones. More like a portrait style to draw the attention to the eyes.
My 2p worth

Theo

[Andrew Shepherd]

Cheers Theo - I like 130 too - her expression ties in with her personality (and her father's!), so I think they'll like that one.

I like the low key effect (as you may have guessed!), but a tighter crop would certainly compliment them.

Andrew