It never fails - I try to schedule headshots for when I'm NOT singing, but every time sombody books... a gig comes in! Not complaining, but a little overwhelmed - the shoots and even the editing aren't that bad, but because I use my home, it means a ton of cleanup and furniture moving to make my livingroom client-ready....(I'll be posting in the pullbacks thread later - I finally remembered to take some ) Anyway, I had two back-to-back this last week, and now (allegedly!) go back to being a fulltime singer until the middle of March. Busy spring all round, it seems.

In any case, this lovely lady is a singer, conducts a prominent children's choir, and has also in recent years added a concurrent career as a lifecoach. She needed shots to cover all her various activities, so we did a lot of different looks and styles. We SCORED with the weather - beautiful bright and warm day (60* in January?!), and the timing of the shoot meant that we got some sweet, sweet light outside right at the end.

C&C always welcomed!

We started with her most-casual look (and for the record, she did her own makeup and hair in all of these - she is GOOD!!) Some have had retouching, others not; I've indicated as needed.

1 Modest retouching; light=windows+relfectors+fill flash. I got lucky with a lighting "accident" here, which I will now be using forevermore: just off camera left I had one flash set up on the floor bouncing off foamcore to light the other background (out of shot). I'd totally forgotten it was still on (as was my trigger) - it added to the big windows she's facing and boosted the ambient in just the way I like. SCORE!

Is her skin too hot in this? I can tone it down, but the bright looked good on my (calibrated, but not great) monitor.



2. Turned out she had done some modelling years ago, so I pretty much just pushed buttons while she moved around. Lighting as above.



3. She needs some "soft corporate" shots for her consulting work, so we did a set of those. I really love this picture but, somehow, her glasses wound up upside down in her hand! I like the expression so much that I think it trumps the glasses, but.... thoughts? Lighting: backlit from windows with sheer curtains; reflectors right+underneath; fill from flash in hotshoe bounced off walls (this one just would not work with OCF in modifiers - just couldn't get it soft enough, and the walls provided a larger source).



4. She'd brought some evening clothes and we couldn't resist "doing diva" for a few. The whole black/backlit thing is SUCH an outdated headshot style (we joked about it the 80's star look), but we had SO MUCH FUN trying to get a couple of hairtosses! Harder than it looks There's a small LED lightpanel set up behind her on my Trekpod providing the hairlight. (This has had pretty extensive retouching, including running it it through Portrait Pro. The "high glamour" of the dress and lighting seemed to warrant a heavier hand with the retouching). Lighting: Photek softlighter + reflectors under/left + LED panel behind.




5 We went outside after that. YUMMY LIGHT!! Love her expression here, even if my umbrella flash didn't go off and I had to cheat a little in post on this one

These are all great!! I love the "glam" one. My only slight issue is with the coporate look, the way she is looking up at you and how her smile works sort of makes her look like she is plotting something devious. Great shot but not sure it is corporate head shot material. It's more of sexy corporate :) Everything else is awesome! I wish I had the gear you have. (sigh)

Thanks for the very kind words but.... gear I have?? HA!! I'm managing with 2 Canon speedlights (420 + 430 - both purchased used, triggered with an STE2 or the 7d's commander) one cheap small SB, one Photek Softliter, a bunch of cheap ebay reflectors, and many many trips to Ikea and Walmart! The LED light was my treat to myself a couple of weeks ago - $35 from Amazon (GREAT cheap addition to the bag!!) Seriously. It's really not "real studio" stuff - the only truly expensive item I've bought for these events is the Trilite reflector setup, and it nearly choked me to pay it. HOWEVER... I'm using it every shoot, and it does stuff I just could'nt manage with my other reflectors (and takes up WAY less space on the floor = huge bonus. When you see the pullbacks, you'll see what I mean....)

Plenty of others in the corporate series - interesting that you see it as devious; to me it looked friendly instead of formal. We'll see which she prefers!

Here's another one (not sure about this one because of 1. the stuff behind her and 2. the chopped fingers)

SOOC

Good stuf. I don't like the rim lighting in her hair in your Diva-shot. Looks to me like an extraction artifact. I'd kill it in the final version. Oh, does she really have that birthmark-ey patch on her right arm?

1, 4 and the photo in post 3 are great. The other poses don't make it for me but hey it is just an opinion. I know she just loved them all. Good stuff and use of a tight space. Thanks for the pull backs.

Thanks John. Yeah, that rimlight a the top does look kinda now you mention it; I can easily remove it. The birthmark is real, and I haven't spoken to her yet to know whether she wants it left as-is or PS'd out; easy enough job either way.

Thanks Charles. I am for sure feeling the limitations of my space but have no choice at this point but to make it work. We had a lot of fun, so it was all good. I'm very pleased at how much I can do with those polypaper backgrounds - I have another one (in fact, the plain white was the back of it) which is kind of a dark blue/brown (I used it in last week's shoot). When shooting wide and blurred out, it almost looks like a spatter cloth. It's nice to have choices at last!

Oh, and the ebay knock-off Apollo softbox I ordered when this shoot was booked? Arrived TODAY, two days late. Oh well! I look forward to next shoot to try it out - it's slightly it's approx 20x30, with an umbrella mount. Can't wait to try it out!

You know I always like your stuff and am amazed by your resourcefulness, but I have some nits to pick feel free to ignore as you see fit.

On shot #3 I do not like how prominent her part is and it makes her hair look less natural overall. I think #5 could be a little tighter crop on her face as the arms and chest don't really add to the picture in my humble opinion.

Thanks for sharing the pullbacks also.

Thanks BB

I agree with you about #5, actually - if she wants that one, I'll play around with different crops. I think I just liked the playfulness of both expression and pose which is why I left it in, but on review, I have the same impression you do.

Hadn't noticed the parting on #3, but of course now you mention it, it's all I can see ...

Haven't had her choices yet, but she says she's going to have a tough time choosing because there are so many she likes, which is always nice to hear :)

You have more gear than I do :) I have my on camera flash and a reflector which is why I shoot all out doors, just me, the sun , my camera and my subject. The cropped fingers don't bother me. You could clone the white to be on the other side of her and it would look fine. I like the shot though. Well done

Well, I"ve been collecting gear over a fairly extened period... When I first started getting into this more seriously in 2009 I had NO (and I mean no) money, so I DIY'd an awful lot. Recently, it's been paying for itself so I've been splashing out on "real" gear from time to time (although soda-carton boxes and eBay still provide most of my best stuff ).

Thanks again for the kind words! I'm just pleased she was happy - i'll be interested to see which ones she chooses in the end....