Bonnie's Portrait Assignment

Window Portraits

Let me start by saying that I really truly do not like taking pictures of people.

That being said, this assignment gave me a great opportunity to challenge myself and take myself out of any comfort zone I might have developed, as well as take some pictures of my better half, who absolutely hates having his picture taken.

If you'll remember from my shadow assignment, my husband always wears a cowboy hat, and for this project it was no exception.

Contemplative (UPDATED)

For this photo I brought up the overall brightness on the photo. The more I look at this photo though, the more I want to go back in and brighten it up some more as his hat looks really yellowish in this photo. (UPDATED: Couldn't stand that yellow tint to the hat so I went back in and brightened.)I really liked how half of his face was a little in shadow, and when I re-read the assignment, I saw how if we had used some white paper to reflect back, we might reduce that effect a bit, but I think I really do prefer the half shadowy look.



(Original) Contemplative

 

Contemplative Black and White

Here's the same photo as above in black and white. While I loved all the examples of the black & white window light photographs in the video Professor Nevins demonstrated in his video link from the syllabus, I think I prefer this photo in color. For this I did some additional lassoing and darkening of his eyes, because they are a very light shade of blue, in the black and white version they were eerily light and looked kind of creepy, so I went back in and increased the contrast to make them just a bit darker. I'm thinking the photo is a little blue toned. Maybe decrease the bluish cast somehow?

 

 

Bored and Impatient

Here we were at the end of our first photo session and you can see he was getting a bit bored and impatient. For this photo I increased the brightness overall and straightened the photo a bit to line up the banister rails. I lassoed and feathered his eyes and increased the color balance on the blue / yellow spectrum towards the blue to make his eyes even bluer. I had considered cropping the photo a bit to eliminate the banister on the stairs but decided to leave it in as I thought the brown banister balanced the brown in the hat band and I liked the steps appearing to the left.

I know, I know.

There weren't supposed to be smiling faces in this assignment, but if you know my husband you would know that those deep laugh lines around his eyes are the result of  many years of laughing.

To see him not smiling is unusual and not like him at all.

Sly Shy Smile 

For this photo I did A LOT of editing. Some of it is glaringly apparent. In the background there was a door knob over his right shoulder that I tried to erase but the color is still bleeding though. (UGH- it's all I see when I look at the picture!) And over his left shoulder there was another dark blob that I tried to erase. I increased the blue color balance in his eyes on this photo, as well.  Coffee and smoking have yellowed his teeth, so I googled "how to whiten teeth in photoshop" and found how you can lasso the teeth and feather and decrease saturation, which gives a more natural look than actually going in and making them unnaturally white.




Laughter is the Best Medicine

For this photo I increased the overall brightness every so slightly and went in and lassoed and feathered those teeth again decreasing saturation to make them a bit less yellow. Both uppers and lowers!

Both 'smiling' and 'laughing' photos weren't posed, they were pictures I just kept snapping away at as I was talking to make him feel more comfortable in front of the camera, so I liked that they were natural and spontaneous.

To give you all a break from that cranky old man here's one of my cat - which also had to be bribed with treats to cooperate.





Macy Gray - The Feral Rescue

For this one I put a plate of cat treats to entice her to get in front of our glass front door so this is full light coming through the door. Although it's missing the shading because it was 'front on' - this is the first time I've ever captured the color of her eyes so beautifully. I'm thinking because I was down on the floor level with her and the light source was dead center. Other than cropping out her food dish, I did no other editing.



So, this week was another learning curve, with 'read the instructions TWICE so you understand the parameters of the assignment. In retrospect the left side of my husband's face is a bit darkened, although I do like that effect.


Also, I'm getting the reflection of the window in his eyes in every picture, so I'm not sure how that happened as I had him seated sideways in front of the window, not looking directly outside the window. Maybe a reflection from a window on the other side of the room?