Monica ( sorry no smile )

[peter]

Ok so first of all she does not smile and she told me from the off do not ask me to smile as I do not want that in my photos . She is a really nice young lady and if only she had smiled they would have been so much better. Oh and the last one was just me trying to play with the light and shadows something I do not do very often.

[Mowgli]

Re: Monica ( sorry no smile )

Hi Pete, If you are planning another photosession with Monica I would suggest you ask her to look away from he camera, to me she then wouldnt need to smile, In these pics she just doesnt look right. Couldnt you have made her laugh? Mo

[Ian]

Re: Monica ( sorry no smile )

Hi Pete, If you are planning another photosession with Monica I would suggest you ask her to look away from he camera, to me she then wouldnt need to smile, In these pics she just doesnt look right. Couldnt you have made her laugh? Mo

I guess that if she said right from the start no smiles then if you did make her smile then she could react negatively?

I think looking away from the camera is a good strategy for a thoughtful composition.

Ian

[peter]

Re: Monica ( sorry no smile )

I guess that if she said right from the start no smiles then if you did make her smile then she could react negatively?

I think looking away from the camera is a good strategy for a thoughtful composition.

Ian

The back story is that she just wanted some photos for face book which is fine by me as it gets me out there with the camera. she did have some done a while ago by a top local tog and was just not happy with them. So I said I would see what I could come up with. This is when she said that she did not like the ones with smiles in as they looked so false. Well I did a few photos for her and she seemed happy with them so I thought well time to play around with the old flash and soft box. I wish she had smiled in even a few as I am sure they would have looked fine.

[Barr1e]

Re: Monica ( sorry no smile )

Nice series - I liked them.

Regards. Barr1e

[peter]

Re: Monica ( sorry no smile )

Hi Barrie

Thanks for that. Not my best by a long way but I was happy with the lighting which was an off camera flash (canon 580ex) fired in to a soft box. I just played around with the flash power settings and such like. All done in manual mode as the triggers are just cheap ebay ones nothing fancy and no TTL for the flash.

[ash]

Re: Monica ( sorry no smile )

Hi Peter, I like the background, framing & lighting on all the shots but feel that Monica could have made a bit more of an effort, does she have a brace fitted or something? A few shots looking away from the lens could have helped, or introduced an object like a flower for monica to be looking at.
My fav is the first one.
cheers
Ash.

[peter]

Re: Monica ( sorry no smile )

Hi Peter, I like the background, framing & lighting on all the shots but feel that Monica could have made a bit more of an effort, does she have a brace fitted or something? A few shots looking away from the lens could have helped, or introduced an object like a flower for monica to be looking at.
My fav is the first one.
cheers
Ash.

Hi Ash

Lets just say after about half an hour of trying to get even a small smile I had almost given up. She had seen a few on the back of the camera and picked the ones she liked best. So I just sort of went in to test mode with the light. Wrong thing to do I guess looking back but I just knew she was not going to smile and that was that. I will ask people from now on if they have a thing about smiling as I do not think I could do that again

[devilgas]

Re: Monica ( sorry no smile )

to quote from tyra banks & the top model stuff....smiling isn't a necessity with the mouth, but it can be done with the eyes - smeyes (or is it smise?)
that has been conveyed in the first shot, but not in the others, which i think is why ash (as do i) prefers the 1st.

cover the features of the face, but leave the eyes. what do they show?

[devilgas]

Re: Monica ( sorry no smile )

Hi Ash

Lets just say after about half an hour of trying to get even a small smile I had almost given up. She had seen a few on the back of the camera and picked the ones she liked best. So I just sort of went in to test mode with the light. Wrong thing to do I guess looking back but I just knew she was not going to smile and that was that. I will ask people from now on if they have a thing about smiling as I do not think I could do that again

what was the aim of the shoot peter? when doing modeling shoots, i find it much easier if both you and the model know exactly what you want to achieve and have the locations & poses planned out and discussed beforehand. i try to keep shoots to an absolute maximum of 1 hour - preferably half of this, and it is very important to have a rapport with the model, especially so when working with non-professionals.
if you drop into 'test mode' then your model will pick up on this (unless that's the purpose of the shoot) and it will get reflected in the mood captured in the images.

hth.

[peter]

Re: Monica ( sorry no smile )

what was the aim of the shoot peter? when doing modeling shoots, i find it much easier if both you and the model know exactly what you want to achieve and have the locations & poses planned out and discussed beforehand. i try to keep shoots to an absolute maximum of 1 hour - preferably half of this, and it is very important to have a rapport with the model, especially so when working with non-professionals.
if you drop into 'test mode' then your model will pick up on this (unless that's the purpose of the shoot) and it will get reflected in the mood captured in the images.

hth.

The truth is she just wanted some nice photos for face book as she had very few on there. She really was not happy with any that she had on there. I was just happy to help her out with that. When I say test mode I was still talking to her and tell her why I was doing stuff. I let her see the the photos on the back of the camera so she could see what I was doing with the light. She liked the look of them and at no time was she fed up if anything it was me that called it a day. I do have something coming up near the end of the week with Jade who I have posted a few photos of before on here and this will be a lot more planned. I think this is just something I will have to put down to experience and learn from.

[Pops]

Re: Monica ( sorry no smile )

I guess she must have her reason for not smiling but it seems very unatural to me. I'm sure a smile would enhance the end result.