Eden

Today a small group from the Photography Society went out to photograph a model in the grounds of a local hotel. 

This was originally planned as an Autumn shoot, with a red haired model to blend with the Golden leaves of Autumn, but in the end the photoshoot was a few weeks later than intended, so most of the autumn colours had gone.  However, there were still plently of opportunities for interesting portraits.

It was a chilly but bright and sunny day.  This caused some problems.  Apart from trying to prevent our model from getting too cold, the bright sun caused significant exposure difficulties.  If the model, a young lady by the name of Eden, had posed facing the sun, there would have been harsh shadows on her face and she would have been squinting in the bright light.  We therefore posed her with the sun behind or to one side.  However, the huge contrast between the brightly lit areas and the less lit areas was beyond the scope of the camera to capture cleanly.  In my blip, I had to work hard to keep the detail in the sunlit part of her hair, and even on the reflective sleeve of her black jacket. Even the use of a couple of reflectors did not totally compensate, although they provided good highlights in Eden's eyes.  Some post-processing work should be able to improve most of the shots, but a quick edit of a selection from the many frames I exposed is posted in my Flickr album.

Posed portraits like this are not my normal area of photography, so I found it quite challenging, but it was an extremely enjoyable afternoon.