Mini portrait session for Sangita & family

Having done my first promotional family mini portrait session for Sangita, I want to blog about the shoot on what worked, what didn’t work, process flow and such. Want to get this post done when things are still fresh in my mind.

 

Needless to say, the session went very well.

Family portrait sessions are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re up to until you’re onto the shoot. That’s the challenging part and having done five sessions now, I’m liking it so far.

 

Things that worked

Simplicity is the key – be it location, pose or clothing choice, keep it simple. I had requested Sangita to get her kids dressed on “less busy” looking clothes and some dark shades. That really helped. On location choice, we had picked a park close home with trees and picked a spot where there aren’t any man made distractions. That really helped to get the subject pop out.

Things that didn’t work

30 minutes is really short for a portrait session. Client is concerned about the clock running and I’m concerned about getting at least few decent shots in the stipulated time.

2 year old have a real short attention span and you’re working on a narrow window of opportunity to capture the moment. This is something I will need to practice 😉

Anyway, in the end it turned out to be a successful session. I am all ready for next mini portrait challenge or my box of “dark” chocolates 😉

Gear used:

Nikon D600
Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8
Nikon SB-600 on a Westcott Octa Box mounted on a Manfrotto light stand
Neewer 5 in 1 reflector – used the silver reflector to fill the shadows

Post processing:

Lightroom 5

Post processing workflow:

Import
Crop
Adjust color temperature
Tweaked exposure using local brush
Tweaked saturation on the greens
Tweaked luminosity on skin tones
Tweaked clarity and tweaked tone curve
Export