Where is my good side?

Phat Baby Photography (i.e. me) is frantically updating its photography website. In the process of fixing up the "About Me" page, I discovered, in some weird twist of irony, that the most recent portrait of myself is either from my drivers license, passport photo or security badge for Zoe's daycare. Do you see a theme here?

So while the kids were at school, and the wife was at work, this mouse decided to play. The experience reminded me of quite a few pearls of photography wisdom which I'll gladly pass along to my somewhat captive audience:

• Black really is more flattering. My other sweater made me look fat.
• I don't have a good side, but looking head on I realize just how large my ears are.
• The 3rd photo below made me realize why kids so readily laugh for me and my camera.
• Details matter. Subtle shifts of the chin, a tilt of the head, positions of my hands which aren't even in most of the pictures changes the entire composition.
• While I tend to move my clients to different backdrops every 15-20 minutes, it's actually quite easy to crank out 100+ poses in the same time with one backdrop and get a nice variety of expressions, moods and compositions.

The overall experience was a nice reminder for me of what my clients must feel when in front of the camera. There was no one around and I felt pretty silly and nervous (more on that below). Special thanks this week for my Facebook followers who chimed in on what portrait they liked best. If you'd like to play along feel free to comment below on which you like or follow this link to my Facebook page and then tune in the new year as I post your recommendations here and on the new website.

BTW: By the time you're reading this, we'll be driving back from Tahoe so wish us luck.

Technical Baby Photography Tips: All the photographs were taken at 1/160, f2.8, ISO 100 using a 100mm prime. The 100mm Canon f2 is one of my favorite lenses and frequently overshadowed by either of the 85mms Canon offers. It's a tad longer which I find ideal for baby photography.

These photos are the result of a two light setup which you can see below. The key light is 24" softbox (my favorite lighting modifier) set really high up so that there is a subtle fall off of light towards my chest. The reflector was used to bounce some light back into the shadows and under my chin. Half the time my smiles in the photos are because I'm triggering the remote with my right hand while holding the reflector in my left. That is except for a few shots where both hands were in the photo and my big toe triggered my PocketWizards (they really should make the button bigger). The last speed light is on the background with a neutral density gel to give me that nice halo effect making me look like some type of angel or something.

For the detail oriented, my light meter reading was taken near the top of my head. Given the light fall off, I actually should have done it a bit closer to my chin since overexposing my black hair isn't so bad, but having a face underexposed by 1/3 stop isn't quite as nice. The oversight is easily correctable in post-processing but figure someone out there will benefit from the nuances.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PhatPhotographer/~3/M4H_rYiCap8/where-is-my-good-side.html

Victoria Kafka Jasmine Grace Zoe Dexter Dean