Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/04/11

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Subject: [Leica] IMG: Studio fashion
From: mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:43:05 -0400

I agree with George that portraiture has taken a big turn for the NATURAL in
this day and age of Facebook and iPhones.
I do notice on Hoppys page this is the most un natural shot on it. Many of
them have a lot of life and spontaneity. This shot to me appears to be an
experiment in face fuzz technology. Wow! A huge mistake as far as I go. But
you still have the original file.
If this gal really did have really bad skin I'd pull back not shooting a
very tight head shot of her and do a head and shoulders. Waist up even.
I've called those head shots over the decades and the checks didn't bounce
and clients came back for more.
And just individually take off a few of the more obvious blemishes on her
face or some very subtle smoothing of some scarring if there really was any.
My own personal rule in doing ton of head shots for models, singers, actors
you name it... Insurance guys is to just pull back. Don't to a very tight
headshot they are seldom necessary.  When I used on cameras diffusion those
shots are a literal wash out as well as methophical. I just cant shot those
shots to anybody they just seem like they were not done by a commercial
photography but a portrait guy at a shopping mall. And ruined a lot of
otherwise nice shoots as the diffusion was on the lens and there was no way
of undoing it. A color problem I'd be able to fix in Photoshop. But hits is
lost and just plain tacky looking information.
Now a days its not done with glass filters on the lens so you still have the
original sharp file with all information intact.

The other day I was a looking at a page of opera singers and what would ten
years ago had been a page of rather stiff heavily retouched  stilled
controlled shots were much more natural. Natural light. Outdoors even. Not
quite sitting at a Starbucks but close.
We get great shots of ourselves with our Iphones for our facebook or
whatever or our friends do of us. I'd hate to have to compete with that now.
I did a headshot of a magic guy a year or more ago and I did it on a park
bench on Riverside Drive. A very successful shoot.

When you give them a waist up shot as a head shot other people will
sometimes just take the head out and put that in print. But it appears very
small. The size of a finger print half the time. So retouched perfection was
never needed.


On 4/10/13 11:35 PM, "Lottermoser George" <imagist3 at mac.com> wrote:

> 
> On Apr 9, 2013, at 7:01 AM, Geoff Hopkinson wrote:
> 
>> First look from a new shoot at home with a new model today.
>> M9 &Summilux 50 ASPH
>> Sorry Ted I used 3 twinkie lights!
>> 
>> <http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman/image/149597285>
> 
> this pose seems too unnatural for me.
> might work if there were another figure (or even part of a figure) which 
> she
> seems to be interacting with.
> 
> the "current look"
> which I'm seeing in the publications coming to
> the twenty somethings in my household
> seem to striving for "natural"
> even when a surreal sort of natural.
> including such as:
> <http://www.freepeople.com/>
> <http://www.elle.com/news/fashion-accessories/luv-aj-baublebar-collaboration?c
> lick=news>
> vogue
> harpers bazaar
> etc.
> 
> definitely enjoying your sharing these exercises.
> 
> Regards,
> George Lottermoser
> george at imagist.com
> http://www.imagist.com
> http://www.imagist.com/blog
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/imagist
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
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-- 
Mark William Rabiner
Photography
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/




Replies: Reply from hopsternew at gmail.com (Geoff Hopkinson) ([Leica] IMG: Studio fashion)
In reply to: Message from imagist3 at mac.com (George Lottermoser) ([Leica] IMG: Studio fashion)