Heat and Portraits

Firstly i will apologize for the lack of images this week-wildlife ones anyways but the USA has been on fire literally, We have just had 6 consecutive days over 100 degrees, Sunday topped the week with 105 and that's without adding in the humidity which takes it over 110, There are heat advisories telling you to stay indoors and that's basically what i have been doing, Its been a very social week having 4th July in the middle and then lots of meets and eating, One evening we had 8 deer in the garden joined by the fawn but once i had the camera outside it instantly misted up and that was that, I normally put the camera gear in the garage to warm up a couple of hours before a shoot but didn't have time and that was the result, The fawn has been in the garden twice this week and i hope to get some shots of it this week before it gets too big, The other deer don't seem to like having it around and it gets bullied a lot, One of the young bucks is getting dominant and will rear up and kick any other deer close by, The foxes are still coming and i have been watching them most evenings and the hummingbirds are still very active, Doesn't help telling you all this without shots but i hope to get some very soon,
We have a very good friend here called Faye, Shes been through a rough time and is recently divorced, We have been helping her to move into her new home and now she is ready to carry on with her life, Like a lot of single people looking to move forward she decided the easiest way to meet people is through on line dating but after a few weeks without much success she talked to us and the first thing that struck me was that the photos that she was using did not do her any justice, So on the 4th July she came to our house and spent the day getting some better images, I set the studio lights up and did the normal black or white background, Like most people they think 3 or 4 shots and its job done but i have shot enough portraits to know that it takes some people time to relax and get comfortable in front of the camera and lights, We shot for over an hour and shot around 210 images, Out of those she really liked about 20, We had a glass of wine and i reset the lights on our upstairs landing and found that she was much more comfortable and relaxed standing as opposed to sitting, Over the next 2 hours we shot a lot with different clothes and background and afterwards sat down with more wine and went through the images and she liked about 80 of the 2nd shoot, A big improvement and it was really hard to wheedle them down further to the final 20, The next day i had processed them and sent them over, She uploaded them and over the next couple of days her e mail box filled up with guys from as far as NY to Georgia, Its just goes to show the power of a good image, I enjoy shooting portraits and am still learning the lights and placement to get the best from your subject, The more mature the person the more critical it is in getting the placement right so as not to show too many 'character' lines, As with ALL forms of photography understanding light will always get the best results

I used the D800 and 70-200 F2.8 VR for all the shots, Lighting was with 1 Elinchrom D Lite 4 and a large silver reflector, The D lite had a 53'' softbox attached, I had just ordered an Elinchrom Beauty dish which should arrive this week so that will give me something else to play with and learn

Dave