lightroom

Jul

2021

Photographing Men

I find there is quite a difference photographing men to photographing portraits of women. The way I shoot and approach my subjects anyway. Perhaps I’ve changed over the years and become a bit seasoned with age. Don’t know for sure.

Posing, editing, lighting, all these I do a little differently. It has been said that one should first learn the rules extremely well, and only then one can or should be able, if one wants, to break them.[read more]

Shoot one style to the point there is no ‘thinking’ involved. Then test the boundaries.

It all goes back to what the photo, or you and the model, are communicating. For example, having the shoulders of the model square on to the camera is normally a pose for a man or boy. Women often, one might pose with one shoulder back and the other forward. One pose is more aggressive than the other. One might be interpreted to invite you in whereas the other might be telling you to piss off.

One of the aspects of photographing men I’ve come to like is being able to play more with textures and contrasts in the editing. Generally, it is frowned upon to show a woman’s ‘flaws’. Again, it’s all about how and what you are trying to communicate. A bit of what is accepted and what people want to view.

That said, check out these few photos of Jordan. He should likely be modelling but that’s up to him. [/read]

Jul

2021

Lightroom Workflow

This is my workflow for portraits/headshots. I’m sure that I do other stuff than this but here is a general outline:

If needed, lighten exposure to see enough detail
Crop to desired shape. Use the Golden Rectangle. Use Command-O to change overlay. Place a key element at ‘cross lines’.Or have one of the vertical lines go up through centre of face, for example in a portrait.
Overall: I play with Exposure/Contrast/Clarity/Saturation to get the balance the way I like. If I up the Clarity and Contrast almost always drop the Saturation.
I’ll also play with the Highlights/Shadows/Whites/Blacks. This can open up shadows and tone down the highlights if necessary.
Eyes: Adjustment Brush (I bought Sean Archer’s Lens Lab add ons for the Adjustment Brush. They are really handy. https://lenslab.com/products/sean-archer-collection)
Iris enhancement: If the eyes are pretty much evenly lit, I do both with same overlay. If they have different amounts of light, I click ‘new’ for each iris. Don’t overdo them but bring them up so that they can be seen. If you are shooting outside and there is no ‘glint’ in the eye from a reflector, this will help with that.
Dark edge of iris: Click ‘New’ on Adjustment Brush and go to ‘Darken’. Use your mouse to make circle small. (You can also use the square brackets for this [ ] to make bigger or smaller. Sometimes better control of the size this way.) Go around the very edge of the iris, not going onto the white of the eye.
Whiten eyes: Click ‘New’ on Adjustment Brush and click on ‘Lighten’. Go over the white parts of the eyes.
Click ‘New’ again and use ‘Lash and Brow Sharpen’
Now but often later when I have done some other stuff, I may use ‘Lighten’, ‘Sharpen’ or ‘Clarity’ or a combination of more than on using a larger ‘circle’ over the whole eye/lid/brow area.
Whiten Teeth with Adjustment Brush. You can customize.
Lips: Use the LensLab colour of your choice. Or just use Sharpen or Clarity
Spot removal brush to get rid of blemishes. This can be done in PS as well but pretty easy to do in LR
Adjustment Brush: Soften skin or Soften Skin (light). Depends on the skin. Often ‘light’ is plenty.
Adjustment brush: Lighten - use this to highlight/accent hair. Don’t over do.
Adjustment brush: Darken - Usually darken the background on portraits. Gradiently darker as it gets to the edges. Do the whole background then hit ‘new’ leaving it on Darken and do further out in steps toward the edge. You can also use Post-Crop Vignetting but using Darken Bruch gives you more control.
Detail: For sharpening the image. Hold the Option button down on your Mac keyboard. Then slide the ‘Masking’ slider to the right. This will sharpen just the edges. Once you have got that over to 60-70 or so, you can slide the ‘Amount’ over to the right. You may not want to use this on all photos but it’s a good tool to have.
Make any other adjustments to Exposure/Clarity/etc like you did in step #3 and #4.
I will then sometimes use Clarity/Sharpen/Lighten in Adjustment Brush for some piece of clothing or something in the background I may want to bring out a bit.
Photoshop: Go from LR to PS. Use Liquify Tool to billow out the hair a bit on some of the ladies photos.
PhotoShop: Get rid of any background items that are distracting.

Photos of Jordan

Lightroom