Fantastic!

wow - what a great expression and wonderful tone!

Unbelievable portrait! Great work.

Beautiful Portrait

unique!!!

Doctored image?

You ought to start putting the steps you took in photoshop for each picture. That would explain a lot to people, and you wouldn't get the same questions all the time of people asking you how you did it, and what's your style etc. Plus, you are looked upon as a teacher, as well as an "idol" if you will of a lot of photographers!

Such amazingly perfect teeth - amazing detail in this shot - hard to believe the busget "nifty fifty" could show such detail.

Stunning portrait. I'm in awe once again.

christopher: no, she really was all blurry round the edges and a uniform shade of sepia. I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned it ;-)

Shaun: I'd love to, but there are two problems. The first is time; i.e. I don't have enough of it. For example, this image has 10 adjustment layers and two masked duplicates of the original image, which is relatively high but not all that uncommon for one of my shots. To explain them all would take quite a bit of time.

Second: more often than not I spend quite a long time playing around with an image and couldn't ever tell you what I did in any sort of linear fashion. All that said, if you do have a specific question about a particular shot please feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer it.

Adam: the 50mm f/1.8 is a great lens. It might not be quite as sharp as the f/1.4 (and it doesn't have USM or full-time manual focussing) but on the 20D (1.6 crop) it makes a great portrait lens.

You are a great image maker, you are what I try to be with my own style.

Thank you David.

Mic.

wow.. she looks great for a 91. lovely portrait.

I love this photo! Beautiful tones - great expression.

You know, I like this and I don't like it. I like it on the level of it being incredibly rich in detail, the fact that for someone so old in the skin, she's so young in the eyes, and that you can see every single one of those 91 years in her skin.

But I don't like it for some of the same reasons: I think the processing has brought out a little bit TOO much of the detail and leatheriness in her skin - it doesn't do her any favours, and I'm not suggesting that all portraits, especially those of women, should cow-tow to their (stereotypical, not necessarily existing) insecurities about appearance - far from it! I just think that it might be a bit too much.

But I do like it. ;)

I suspect her perfect teeth came from the same place that my Grandma gets hers. I always wondered as a child, how come my grand parents had such straight white teeth when my Mum had such wonky ones ;-). An advantage of early tooth loss. Great portrait, I hope she sees it, she looks like a wonderful woman.

Wonderful shot. Instant smile across my face!

The tones, the contrast and composition are spot on perfect.

Just made me wait for the "grandma kiss"

Weren't you saying the other day that you had far to go with portraits? ;) I think you nailed this one. It makes me stop and take her in and I think that's one of the key parts of any image. No matter the subject, if it can draw someone in and keep them there to really see it, that's success. And 10 adjustment layers? Wowie!

Great photo (as usual). My only critique is that you can see the flash reflection in her eyes, but I love the rich "color" of this shot. It looks very similar to a lot of your friend's photos, the guy you reference a lot on your site (John?).

Could you explain how you manipulate 10 layers and come up with such a rich photo? It looks like a B&W photo but it clearly has that sepia tone to it.

I just ordered a "nifty fifty" for my 20D and can't wait to see the results!

Ok honestly, this scared the living bejesus out of me. Something about the look in her eyes. Maybe I just am scared by old people, especially after that incident with the hamster, the bagel and the two week old cheese. *cries*

Beautiful.

brilliant portrait

Amazing eyes.. she looks surprisingly healthy at 91! all her teeth even look nice and clean!!

Hi,

I was curious how you went about approaching this lady. How did she feel about you taking her shot? Will she ever see it?

I think it's a wonderful image. I love the detail on her face. I wouldn't have guessed that she was so old.

Dave, great shot, as usual. You've used the 580ex but is it diffused? There's very little shadow on the face so was curious.

This is gorgeous. I hope I look like that if I get to 91. She looks great. You captured a twinkle in her eye!

owen b, i disagree, the 'leatheriness' of her face is perfect. how can it be too much? it's her skin! i think it would be a crime to remove any of that detail.

Love the image.

Also love Shaun's suggestion - though I completely sympathize with your response. That said, if only for the occasional (exemplar) image it would be really nice to see what you do. For example, it's astonishing to me that there are 10 adjustment layers and 2 masked duplicates of the original involved in this. I have no idea what you've done that requires all that. I'd love to know - even for a single shot - what kinds of things you do to get such compelling final products.

Just a thought... Love your work.

i love the poses that people instantly strike whenever presented with the prospect of being photographed. i turned up shortly after this shot was taken, and you have certainly captured the essence of the lady ( she was going to the north pier to meet her friends to see a concert, very plesant person).

nice to met you, lovely shot.

Her eyes are marvelous! Wonderful shot!

wondeful tones and sharpness

I see joy and grace, age and youth ... a stunning portrait full of life and character. Beautifully manip'd. I hope the lovely lady sees it too. Well done.

Wow!
Interesting expression!
Nice face. I like this photo.

Love the face, but the softening around the edges kind of ruins it for me, sorry.

Great Expression and detail. I absolutely hate the blurring around the edges though. I think it takes away from the shot. I want to see her fine white hair in detail!

Dave, this is just superb - her eyes look electric. I'm not too sure about the blurring around the edges - it's the only flaw about this otherwise perfect portrait.

:-)
Looks like it was taken Oz

Great portrait Dave - very nice tone

Just out of curiosity, how much time do you usually spend processing each image before you're happy with it? I'm a bit of a photoshop dunce, so I never know what to do except basic saturation and contrast stuff.

Your EXIF said 1/500s on your 20D with the 580EX flash?
Since the 20D has a 1/250s flash sync speed, I'm a bit puzzled.
(I have a 20D and I've *just* aquired a 580EX this weekend, and I'm learning how to use it, so far with dramatically varying results.)

Could you tell us how you lit Mrs. Whitehead?
Thanks!

Great shot!
--- Doug

A fantastic shot, but the eyes are unsettling to me -- something unpleasant there. Otherwise amazing.

Ciao.

owen: yes, I know what you mean, but in this case I don't think the processing takes anything away from her. Had she looked tired, or ill, or otherwise not with it, I think I might have been tempted to go for a much softer approach, but she was so full of life - and I think this comes across in the shot - that I didn't think this level of processing was a problem.

Little Sister: yep, the teeth are definitely from the same place :-)

Max and Ben: in this case the adjustment layers were partly to do with controlling the contrast but were also there to desaturate the image (Channel Mixer) and tone it (Curves too). One of the things I keep meaning to do is put up some tutorial images – I just need to find the time to do it.

Leo: lol :-)

Stephanie: I just asked her if I could photograph her. This was made easier as I'm shooting a series of portraits at the moment that are attempting to capture the cultural and ethnic diversity of the North West (of England) - so I could explain the context - but she was happy to have her photograph taken.

Sean: I use a Stofen diffuser.

basilbrush: I softened the edges as I found that the original, probably because I cropped so tightly, constantly drew my attention to the edge of the image; i.e. her hair was distracting, to my mind at least.

Caroline: it varies, anywhere from ten minutes to a couple of hours. Most could probably be done much quicker, particularly the ones that take an hour or two, but I find Photoshop quite therapeutic.

Doug: the 580EX has a high speed sync mode; i.e. you can synchronise it at any speed.

wow! creepy! great details

One thing you could do instead of doing a tutorial/steps on every shot is to save the PSD with the layers in tact and post that. Would be a huge file, but you could just reduce it to like 72DPI and a lower resolution. Thanks for the great photos...makes me want to get better.

Top marks. Great photo!

Thanks for your reply, David. (ref: 580EX's High-Speed Sync mode)

I've now finished reading through the manual, which I hadn't when I posted a few days ago. Very interesting. I have much to try.

Personally, I find when I using the flash, especially from so close, I wipe out the detail because the flash fills in all the crevaces on the subject. But you've clearly got all the nuance of her face nicely captured. Did you find you had to dial down the flash's power, or did it work well on default settings?

Time to go practice some more. :)
--- Doug

Good Service