June 11: Family Portrait

Brace yourself for something new.
I'm usually runnin' around with a 40lb pack, skiing/biking/etc, to get my photos.
This week, I shot some family portraits.

We went to Antelope Island near SLC to find some nice background scenery.

Later, when patience was running low, and the bugs were devouring us all, the composition broke down.

Notice that the baby's parents (far left) are the only ones not paying attention to the baby. Although, I expect they probably deserve a little break.

Before that happened though, we shot this headshot for the man of the hour, before he leaves for 2 years.

And one of his sister, (a friend of mine).

And brother, sis-in-law, & niece.

And, of course, the proud parents.

I used artificial lighting (mixed with sunlight) in all of the above images. The cloud cover made it difficult to get the light balance correct, as some images were in bright sun (ex: sister) and others were soft shade.
For most shots, only fill was needed. In some, like his headshot, I used the strobe as the key light.

Now, let's do some photoshop work.
In this image, mom looks good, but the cloud reflection ruins the other half of photo (and dad isn't looking).

Then, in another image, dad looks good, but mom is buried in clouds.

It proved too difficult to get this shot done right in camera. (If I had remembered my polarizer, it would have been simple. Oops.)
So, I wanted to combine the good halves of the two photos into one composite image.

Check out this screencast video of how it went.


PhotoShop Composite from Jeremy Koons on Vimeo.




And here's the final image.