04. An active portrait

The subject, a musician with George Harrison looks, was asked to pick up a guitar and play. No particular direction beyond this was given. The photographer moved around getting different angles, aware of the changing background and its' juxtaposition with the sitter who sometimes looked towards the camera and sometimes towards his instrument.

   This image works but could have been improved had the photographer been lower down, looking up rather than down, at the subject. The reason this did not happen was an intention to preserve a reasonable background even if it is slightly distracting from the subject, the background allows the eye to wander around the image and to return when it wishes to focus on the central subject.

TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS

After downloading the images using Lightroom, I found it helpful to put them into a Collection as they needed to be considered separately from other images taken around that time that were of different subjects.

The images were first examined at 1:1 for quality, images with better definition being awarded higher stars. Sharpness does not seem so important with a portrait but this initial clarification helped to start the selection process. Out of focus images got no stars with blurred ones getting an X and so designated for deletion; a considerable number of images got either 2 or 3 stars.

Next, the images were considered for facial expression and overall composition. Ones chosen here were given a P for pick.

Then these picked and starred images (13 in total) were selected via the Attribute bar and were again considered, this time in terms of development, being given a yellow rating if worthwhile. This resulted in a choice of 4 images that were all cropped to give a better sense of the individual within the frame.

The final image was given a red marker. It shows an engaging look and evidence of the guitar being played as the right playing hand is slightly blurred. The background is also balanced although possibly a little busy.

Processing started by taking a white balance reading off a part of the beard; this needed warming slightly. Optimisation continued yet in the final instance, after sharpening, the facial skin was smoothed with the paintbrush while features such as the eyes, mouth and hair were sharpened with the paintbrush.