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No other place for this, so I'm tossing it out here. I shot a friend's birthday party last week and there was a very lively Afro-Cuban Latin Salsa fusion band. This darling little girl was part of the group -- she was totally tuned in to everything going on, never fussed, and was obviously very bright. She spent quite a while raptly memorizing the trumpet fingering.
And I see I missed touching out an eyelash or something beside her right eye. Consider that fixed!
You really captured the expressions here! The contrast of generations is timeless and poignant. Would you mind briefly sharing your B&W conversion technique that captured the 2 different skin and hair tones and textures so well?
This is a great candid (the best kind) portrait. The diagonal is a very effective element on its own, but it's also part of a triangle that does a wonderful job of keeping the viewer's eye on the image (as if the expressions weren't enough).
Nat Geo Awesome, Diane.... Incredibly touching.
You captured a very poignant moment. Processing is perfect:S3:
I'm always happy to share, but really the credit here goes to the very cool "models!" This was completely spontaneous -- I don't think she realized I was shooting her. I was using the 70-200 (at 150 here, on the full-frame Canon 5D3), which isn't exactly stealthy. The sharpness of that lens gets the credit for the subtle detail here. (Including the stray eyelash!)
The woman's complexion was pretty dark, and the baby was very light, but they balanced out well in LR5's RAW processing by bringing up the Shadows slider and down on the Highlights. It was on a large outdoor patio under a very large translucent roof, so beautiful, diffuse, slightly directional light to start with. You can see the quality of the light on the baby's shirt. It also made the woman's face a little lighter than it really was, due to the direction she is facing, and the baby's face was more shaded.
Then into Silver Efex Pro -- I always start with the default preset and just tweak sliders to taste. I go to the Color Filter section and bring the Strength up about halfway and dial around with the Hue slider till I get close to what I like, then tweak the Strength. Sometimes a little more tonal separation can be obtained with the color sliders in the Sensitivity section under Film Types. Then I'll usually do a little Structure, or a lot for a funky subject.
Then I'll go to Color Efex and look at Detail Extractor and Pro Contrast. Then I consider if I want to do a soft selection (by brushing on a quick mask) for an area that might need some lightening, darkening or contrast boost (with a masked curve). I thought about a little darkening on the baby's face but liked the infrared quality that came out. The whole thing might go a little darker -- the paint never dries.
But really, one of the Mods should move this to Family, Friends, etc -- I posted it before I saw Kerry's note that there is indeed a place for straight portraits.
Diane, a beautiful touching image. Thanks for the time and effort to share your B&W conversion.
Photojournalistic quality! Love the conversion and the deep blacks. I hope it makes it to print.
Thanks! I think it will. The band asked me to let them know when I got them online -- they'll be up for the party guests and the band was cool enough to deserve equal billing. There are a couple that beg for being given to them as prints.
