This is the penultimate image I'll be posting from the wedding I shot with Craig recently, and one of my favourites from the set. There are three reasons I like it.
First, it's a nice, happy shot: I love photographing people who are genuinely and unselfconsciously enjoying themselves.
Second, it was dead easy to post-process. Now, much as I like mucking around in Photoshop – I find the whole process very therapeutic – it's always rewarding to actually nail a wedding shot that requires very little work. In this case, just two adjustments: a black and white conversion using the Channel Mixer, then a single Curve for brightness and contrast.
If you're interested, the Channel Mixer conversion was biased towards the blue channel. This accentuated his facial details, and had the added bonus of lightening his jacket (both my black and white tutorials cover this technique. Further info here and here). All I then needed to do was brighten the image and add some contrast using a fairly strong S-curve, a topic I spend quite a lot of time discussing in my Tonal Range and the Curves Tool tutorial.
The third, and probably less obvious reason I like this one is that his camera looks implausibly small and fragile. Don't ask me why that's a good reason to like this image – I really have no idea why it appeals to me – but for me it's one of the elements that makes this shot.
As always, let me know what you think.
Oh, and Craig has also blogged a shot from the wedding today too. If you're interested, you can take a look here:
comment byCarlos Garcia at 12:18 PM (GMT) on 25 September, 2010
Love the detail and black and white processing. You really captured a lot of joy in this shot. Actually, the camera fires 45 caliber rounds. He is agent 006.
comment byDan Kaufman at 12:56 PM (GMT) on 25 September, 2010
I whole heartedly agree with your happy comment !!!
On the B&W conversion, might you have (mucked around a bit more and) done a second CM conversion to bring out the detail in the carnation (in its green stem) and then masked in the result. This would seem to add detail into a dark area.
comment bydjn1 at 01:00 PM (GMT) on 25 September, 2010
Carlos: thanks.
Dan: I did think about bringing some more detail out in his jacket, and the carnation, but decided that I didn't really want another area of the image to draw the viewer's attention. I might try it though :)
comment byChris at 05:36 PM (GMT) on 25 September, 2010
You captured some very interesting expressions at that wedding. This is definitely an image where he shows he is having a great time. Regarding the post-processing, this is an excellent example of getting most of of it done correctly in camera and then applying a few tweaks in post-production. However, I am surprise you never cloned out or at least lightened that dark black spot in the upper left.
comment bydjn1 at 06:39 PM (GMT) on 25 September, 2010
Thanks Chris: as for the background – I kind of like that it adds a bit of context. Without it I think that the background would be a bit too featureless.
comment by irving at 06:12 AM (GMT) on 26 September, 2010
woow..!! :O yo tengo una camara igual :p..!! hehe :D esta bien chida la foto, como siempre..!!
This is the penultimate image I'll be posting from the wedding I shot with Craig recently, and one of my favourites from the set. There are three reasons I like it.
First, it's a nice, happy shot: I love photographing people who are genuinely and unselfconsciously enjoying themselves.
Second, it was dead easy to post-process. Now, much as I like mucking around in Photoshop – I find the whole process very therapeutic – it's always rewarding to actually nail a wedding shot that requires very little work. In this case, just two adjustments: a black and white conversion using the Channel Mixer, then a single Curve for brightness and contrast.
If you're interested, the Channel Mixer conversion was biased towards the blue channel. This accentuated his facial details, and had the added bonus of lightening his jacket (both my black and white tutorials cover this technique. Further info here and here). All I then needed to do was brighten the image and add some contrast using a fairly strong S-curve, a topic I spend quite a lot of time discussing in my Tonal Range and the Curves Tool tutorial.
The third, and probably less obvious reason I like this one is that his camera looks implausibly small and fragile. Don't ask me why that's a good reason to like this image – I really have no idea why it appeals to me – but for me it's one of the elements that makes this shot.
As always, let me know what you think.
Oh, and Craig has also blogged a shot from the wedding today too. If you're interested, you can take a look here:
http://www.id7.co.uk/portfolio/archives/1009251900_clean.php
camera
lens
focal length
aperture
shutter speed
shooting mode
exposure bias
metering mode
ISO
flash
image quality
RAW converter
plugins (etc)
cropped?
Canon 5D Mark II
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
200mm
f/4.5
1/200
aperture priority
+1/3
evaluative
200
no
RAW
ACR
none
no
Love the detail and black and white processing. You really captured a lot of joy in this shot. Actually, the camera fires 45 caliber rounds. He is agent 006.
I whole heartedly agree with your happy comment !!!
On the B&W conversion, might you have (mucked around a bit more and) done a second CM conversion to bring out the detail in the carnation (in its green stem) and then masked in the result. This would seem to add detail into a dark area.
Carlos: thanks.
Dan: I did think about bringing some more detail out in his jacket, and the carnation, but decided that I didn't really want another area of the image to draw the viewer's attention. I might try it though :)
You captured some very interesting expressions at that wedding. This is definitely an image where he shows he is having a great time. Regarding the post-processing, this is an excellent example of getting most of of it done correctly in camera and then applying a few tweaks in post-production. However, I am surprise you never cloned out or at least lightened that dark black spot in the upper left.
Thanks Chris: as for the background – I kind of like that it adds a bit of context. Without it I think that the background would be a bit too featureless.
woow..!! :O yo tengo una camara igual :p..!! hehe :D esta bien chida la foto, como siempre..!!
Great portrait.Love this kind of pictures.EXELLENT
Great attitude, it made me lol.