Assignment five People and place on assignment.

For this final assignment I needed to give myself a client brief and plan the assignment.  I ended up being very lucky and having a 'client with a real assignment'.

I was asked to take some photographs of a young girl for her modelling portfolio.  My first questions to her mum were what sort of poses do they require and also backgrounds. I was told that it needed to be a white background which I already had as I have a small home studio and that the little girl would be in jeans and white tops. so far as poses were concerned they required head and shoulder poses but smiling and also non smiling and then the same and full length photographs. 

Having arranged a time to take the photographs I set my studio lights up and made sure the backdrop I planned to use was ok. I used three lights one at 45% to her which was  a large soft box one to the front of her with a silver  umbrella and thirdly a snoot to light the backdrop at times.  All my lights were metered with the main light being at F8 and the others at F16.  My camera I dialled in manual settings of F8 and a shutter speed of 125 of a second.  I then adjusted as required once the model was in place.

Overall I was very pleased with the results, I was expecting some difficulties having an eight year old girl and getting her to do what I wanted but overall she was very good. The biggest problem was she kept smiling and laughing when I needed her to be straight faced.  In the end we got her to use a focal point and it became easier to get the photographs I wanted and more importantly her mum needed..

This is my choice  from the photographs I took and my reasons for it.

This was one of the first ones I took of Aylssa, After we had managed to stop her smiling no mean feat in its self she was very good and took any directions given to her with ease.  I had asked her to sit on the floor then we placed a cushion to the side of her to add some substance to the photograph rather than her hold her hands in her lap we gave her different things to hold before settling on the flower which we went on to use in several of the photographs.

This next one I decided to get her to sit with her legs to one side like a mermaid, I knew I wanted to use some effects in post processing.

I used a gradual colour background by adding a new layer.  firstly I selected a colour for my background, then the gradient tool I picked the circular gradient. The next thing to do having made sure the mode was set to normal and the opacity to 100% I drew a line down the centre of the image with my cursor.  I then changed the mode to multiply and the opacity to 50% and used the eraser with no hardness to erase any parts I wanted exposed from the green.

 The third photograph I took before we made some changes to her hair by cutting in a fringe and straightening I gave her a toy dog which she cuddled, I like the expression on her face in this one,its as if she is unaware of anything but the toy and the cuddle she is giving it.

After the transformation to her hair and a change of clothes I took the photographs below.

I  like to work with props as I feel it makes people more relaxed they tend to play with them rather than being so aware of the camera.  I also gave her a small red chair which I got her to sit on, however although it was a nice photograph it was a bit too stiff and not Aylssa at all.  Although the photographs were for her modelling portfolio and I had a brief to work to I was also aware that I needed to capture her. I wanted some in black and white as well as the colour ones.  I even tried some colour pop ones which her mum was very pleased with.  I chose to convert one of the photographs to black and white but then add a bit of drama to it, having tried various backdrops added in at the post production stage I finally settled on the solid colour, I feel it makes the image pop making it more modern and fresh feeling.

I have to say that photographing Aylssa is always a pleasure and I am more than happy to spending as much time that's needed to capture her true self.

The two photographs below are my favourites. The colour one fills the frame and the colours work well, however I love black and white as it's timeless.

I like to include a couple of 'almost ones'. i find this can be and interesting exercise as something I have included in this section often turns out to be a favourite of someone else.  I guess that's partly what photography is all about.

the feedback report has arrived and I am very pleased with the comments,  two things that my tutor picked up on was the photograph of Aylssa cuddling the dog the back of her is somewhat lost I Can see that and wish I had seen it earlier. The second comment was about her leg where she has one foot on the chair, he would have cropped it but admitted it was personal preference and asked what I thought.

I showed the photographs to various other people including a couple of professional photographers who liked the pose so I agree it comes down to your own views.

I have recently found out that some of these photographs have been picked for her modelling page and even used on her card that contains all her details, in fact I found out some I took last year have also been used.



www.sandrareynolds.co.uk  you need the junior tab, girls tab then A for Aylssa to view.

A cropped version of this photograph was used on her card.