01. Portrait, Scale and Setting

Finally, I find a willing subject, the musician Chinmaya Dunster, who wants a reliable photograph for his promotion. He poses as he wishes to be seen and I need only co-operate with his idea of the image he wishes to convey.

Yet, immediately I become aware of an issue in portrait photography; the need to convey natural skin tones. Having experimented with different in-camera colour settings, I realize that none have done the job properly. Perhaps a little flash might have got rid of the yellowish-green tinge to many of the photos that were made on the steps of the musician's porch.

Looking through the images that were all head shots, I found a couple of images, made within half a minute of each other, in which Chinmaya looked relaxed and seemed to be showing his true self rather than projecting an image he considered appropriate.

As well as a lot of colour work in Lightroom (such as using the brush to desaturate), negative “clarity” was applied to soften the face.

For the head and shoulders framing, Chinmaya spontaneously brought his hands up to support his chin. This helped the composition enormously and I saw no reason to tell him to assume a different posture. When processing, negative clarity was again applied to soften the face while a straight white balance was made from using hairs on the beard resulting in an image that lacked the warmth of the initial head photo but did not suggest any unpleasant skin tones.

For the head and shoulders image, Chin sat on the porch with his knees up. The backdrop on which the faint markings of a design can be seen was especially put there for the session and here forms a natural effect around the head of the sitter without distracting the viewer. Once again, clarity was applied to facial features while white balance was customized from a silvery point on the beard; the rather pale result was then warmed slightly by moving the Temp toggle to the right. A paintbrush was used with clarity at 10 and sharpness at 100 to emphasise features such as the eyes and mouth.

To present more than one different colour balance in this series of photographs might seem inconsistent but since this is an exercise, the emphasis is on experimentation in an attempt to see what approach works best.

In the final, full body portrait, not only is the body considered but also the background and the figure is placed within a composition that includes the steps of the porch as well as a plant. One has the chance to consider the person at leisure rather than the unavoidable presence suggested by the tighter frame.

White balance was customized by a white area on the pillar after which the image was warmed by about 750K. Clarity was not applied since here the face forms only a small part of the image. However, the image was sharpened to make the face clearer within the frame as well as the other objects.

It would have been better if customised white-balance had been used here while shooting the photographs as that would have brought out a more sensitive reproduction of facial tones without the need for time to be spent on colour correction.