Some of the rest of the photo session

On Sunday my friends Michelle and Antje came over for a fun photo session. Part of it was the two noir detectives. That story is here. It also includes a couple portrait photos of Antje by herself, but which are part of the noir series so I put them there.

While I've taken many photos of Michelle over the years, some posed, some not, all the ones of Antje so far had been unposed, in outdoor light. She wanted to be part of the session, but was a bit nervous about formally posing. We decided to start with her, and play with light. These photos show the evolving sequence.

My thoughts around portrait photography is that I like to work with real people to capture a flattering image of them as they are. People have wrinkles, freckles, errant hairs, skin blemishes, and any number of other "flaws" that they think make for a poor photo, and I say bah! I think people are sick of perfection, and now are suspecting that an image that looks too good is AI generated. Yes, some poses work better than others. Subtle makeup and lighting can change the image, but I'm not going to turn a real person into a magazine cover.

1. One of the fun things is capturing unposed photos behind the scenes. We were just getting started, with Michelle touching up some lip gloss.

2. Starting off with soft lighting, seeing how the shadows looked. 

3. Conversion to black and white, trying to see what the texture of her skin does with varying levels of light.

4.

5. Starting to relax in front of the camera. 

6. Another sort of behind the scenes look. I'm not sure what was happening here.

7. Finally getting the light to show up on her hair, but without overexposing her face.

8. Michelle fluffing and arranging hair. I think she was trying to make that little curl go away. It's really nice to have an assistant for this sort of thing. That way I don't have to touch anyone. As it turns out, this is one of the really nice photos from the day, with Michelle framing Antje.

9. Yes, there actually was coffee in the mug, so it's not just a prop.

10. And we get to the winners!

11.

12. Antje had always wondered what her eye would look like in a macro photo. I was happy to oblige.

As with the noir detectives, I could work on these forever in Lightroom. Mostly it was careful and subtle adjustments to highlights and shadows, overall exposure, and darkening the background. An editing pro might wince at what I've done, and take the images in a different direction entirely. That's their vision. As long as my models are happy, I'm happy.

It was a fun session! We all worked together trying different ideas. Some worked, some didn't. There's already been some thoughts about another session. Stay tuned.