Colour Portraits - Shoot 4

Out of all the models that I had lined up I was looking forward to this one most. The reason being is that Melissa really expresses herself through her hair. She is expressive and always has full hair and make-up done. She is stunning and takes her style to its full potential. I love her 1950’s/rockabilly/pin up look and it was really something that I wanted to get as an example in my work.   

I think that I maybe expected too much from this shoot and high hopes. So far everyone that I have taken photographs of have been fellow photographers and were used to such things like the lighting and flashes. I forgot that for someone out of there comfort zone this could be quite intimidating. 

Right from the start of the shoot I could tell that Melissa felt uncomfortable and didn't really know what to do with herself. I think that this is really noticeable when looking at the contact sheet created from the shoot with her and in the images above. At this point I was really beginning to worry that I wouldn't get a shot of her that I wanted. I think she began to sense my panic. I would have thought that this would have made her panic more but strangely it made it work out. I think she knew how badly I wanted to get the shot and put her nerves and the uncomfortable feelings to the back of her mind and really let go for the shoot. This I am really grateful to her for. After this point we got some really nice shots.

The models skin on this image has a more golden tone to it, this is because I changed the cover on the reflector to see if I could try and brighten the pale skin of the model slightly. However I think that this is too noticeable and it would stand out from the other images from previous shoots if I was to do this so I changed it back to a white on after this. I like the way that she is looking to the side however by doing this you lose the pupil in the eye on the left and it almost just looks all white. I don’t think that this is very flattering. 

When it got to this point I realized that I was so close to getting my final image. She had begun to relax and I think that you can read this through her facial expression. I like the framing of the image and also the positioning of her hair. The lighting is really soft and creates subtle shadows on the face that really gives the image definition and character. The only problem is the eyes. They have nice catch lights but I don’t like that she is looking above the camera. This isn't the model fault as I directed her to do this.  This was easily corrected by re-shooting the image. 

Final Image:

I chose this as my final image because I like everything about the image. it’s the same as the image above only the eyes are directly looking into the lens and drawing you into the image.  This is a great addition to the images that I already have.