Put a Sock [Monkey] in it OR SOTC 37/365

I did one of my best portrait shoots last weekend. There is an internal tension that exists when I shoot portraiture. I enjoy creating portraits--especially candids--but it's tricky business. I'm rarely as satisfied after a portrait shoot as I am after other shoots.

One has to move fairly swiftly in portraiture (especially with young children). There is not a lot of time to tweak shutter speeds, F-stops, and white balance settings in the moment. I can compose shots in nature for several hours; the attention span of models is not nearly as lengthy.

And I rarely get a perfect portrait SOTC.

There may be less-than-adequate lighting, so I must brighten things up a little. Even compensating in-camera by bumping up the ISO means I end up applying noise reduction afterwards.

More often than not, my angle is tilted by 1/2 a degree (I think I come by this flaw naturally--I've seen my dad's photos), which means I'm straightening and cropping.

And my most salient issue--white balance. I don't have time to set a custom white balance every 5-10 minutes as I shoot around my location (or maybe it's just amateurs that say that). So I set my white balance to automatic, and just shoot. Of course, the camera doesn't always get it right. Surrounded by plants, my models are often rendered a touch green. Indoors, the warm glow of light bulbs almost gives my models jaundice. SIGH. Back to Photoshop I go.

But with each photo shoot, I learn.

This weekend, I took some family photos for a good friend and her two daughters. I have taken their photos yearly for the last three years or so, and was quite satisfied with how this latest set turned out.

For the first time, I shot on location at City Hall. The architecture allowed for some lovely compositions. The plethora of windows allowed for nice, even lighting (though it could have been a touch brighter in some areas). And the all-grown-up models meant that I didn't feel like I had to move quite as quickly. I was even able to get a little creative, and they assisted in the set-up!

Did I still have to post-process? Yes. Admittedly, every single photo. That being said, that includes the bulk where the only post-processing required was a little bit of noise reduction to get rid of mild graininess OR a small tweak to white balance. I did not have to brighten so many shadows! I did not have to sharpen someone's features! I did not have to disappear some dude in the background that I didn't see ahead of time. And I think--for the first time in a long time--I did not have to swap out someone's head from another picture because they weren't looking at the camera!

It's great to know when I am building up skill in Photoshop.
But it's even better to know I'm building up skill in-camera.