Presenting: Andy Cohen
With my kids home this summer, I offered both of them a chance to do a portrait session with their dad. Now having your parents take pictures of you can be a dreadful experience and many of us have memories of our parents putting us in uncomfortable, itchy sweaters, plopping us in a pile of leaves, and then yelling at us to “smile more naturally!” Also, today’s young adults have, on average, 2,941 photos of themselves on their phones. (My kids, naturally are above average) Every time I made the offer, I received a “sure dad” response that lacked the enthusiasm and authenticity for me to take them too seriously.
This weekend, I decided to try one more time and the “sure dad” I heard from my son, Andy, sounded more consequential and my hopes soared that I could finally create some images of at least one of my kids. Without a very strong confirmation from him, I rushed downstairs and set up a make-shift studio in the basement of our rented home. I have some stands that are about 25 years old and an old, heavy, black velvet blanket that could serve as a backdrop. I have one speed light — a Nikon SB 700 — and my back-up Nikon D750 camera body can trigger the flash remotely. The only modifier I have is a 30” umbrella which I attached to my light.
This was at 10:00AM. It took me another 5 hours to coax my son to make his way down to the basement and do some posing for me. Once he committed, he was actually an enthusiastic participant. He brought several outfits down with him and even broke out his good watch that he could wear for the session. I must say, he was sort of a natural. I did not have to give him too much direction and unlike when he was 6, I never heard “How much longer?” with a whiny voice that a 6 year-old can truly perfect. With just one light, I was somewhat limited in what I could do but a year ago I had bought a 5-in-1 reflector that I broke out. We tried different colors (white, gold, silver) and it did a great job of filling in the shadows and providing a great soft look.
We tried to get a little creative during our session (often a dangerous thing to do) and I set my camera up on a tripod to do some long exposures, usually around 2-3 seconds. Andy experimented with different movements and we did get some cool images. I also did some multiple exposures and then blended the images in Photoshop. I’ll show them to you but I should have changed the lighting for the different poses. Next time, I’ll do better.
I tried to use a handheld flashlight (courtesy of my daughter) as a rim light but I could not adjust the power of the light or the size of the beam making it tough to work with. Still, you can see what I was going for.
With most of the shots, I positioned the light above Andy’s head and at about a 45 degree angle from his body. Toward the end, we tried more of a “clamshell” lighting approach, positioning a light almost directly in front of him facing down. I then had him hold a reflector to fill in the shadows under his chin and nose. The lighting on these shots was the softest of the day and I was most pleased with these images.
A 19-year with pretty good skin and a solid jawline does not require a lot of work in post. I purposefully did the bare minimum as I am not a fan of the overly smoothed skin you see in some photos that make the models’ skin look like plastic. You will notice Andy’s photos are now featured on the “Portraits” section of my website. Check out the page if you haven’t yet. I’ve already gotten one gig from this session: my daughter, Annie, also agreed to pose for me. I just need to make it happen before she heads back to college.
