Family Portrait Sessions
Photography 101
William B. Lewis
Photography 101... The Veteran Photographer is an advanced professional with the use of proper composition, color correcting, contrast and brightness. Ask your prospective photographer questions to determine if he or she is a professional.
If you are taking a photograph of a lady with a red blouse what color needs to be added to the facial tone in the final processed digital picture? Answer, cyan. The red blouse will reflect red light in the 650 nanometer range; this can be corrected by adding a few cc's of cyan to the digital image during "processing." The visible spectrum is in the range of 400-700 nanometers.
Question two, what is contrast? Contrast is the tonal range between the highlights and shadow areas of a digital photograph. Gamma represents a ratio between these two ranges and is a "process" measurement.
A final question, what are all the colors in the visible spectrum? (hint--rainbow). Answer, A veteran photographer will answer you by saying Roy Gee Biv... in other words Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Violet or ROYGBV
Before correcting. Photographs should have several things to look at and still have focus on the main subject. The horizon in the photograph is important to keep the image in objective mode.
After editing. The gravel road was removed and replaced with grass directly behind the subject and above the water line. Contrast and brightness were slighly increased along with the addition of a few CCs of magenta to remove the green tone from the subject's face.
In the background of this image one can see a gravel trail which was remove in the image to the right.
Using fill flash and side lighting this image appears to be photographed in the controlled environment of a studio, but it was photographed at a local park.
Gravel road removed and replaced with new grass in image on the right. This image also accurately shows the rule of thirds taught in photography 101. Professional photographers pay strict attention to background noise. George Lucas of Star Wars fame was an expert at showing magnificent and lovely backgrounds in his films.
In the background the dock and road were also removed. Eye placement and focus is always important. As one can see, no matter what angle you view this picture frome, the subjects' eyes are always looking at you. This is called the "renaissance effect" as depicted in the painting "Mona Lisa."
The green "cold" cast was removed showing the subject's proper skin tone. In photography by adding magenta to an image, successfully removes green from a picture.
This picture was fixed by adding green grass to replace the brown colored grass.
A key characteristic in this photographic is proper framing of subject. The camera only sees in 2 dimensions, therefore subjects should be framed with a proper background to show emphasis on subjects.
Original RAW image. One can also see the railing the subject is leaning on is used as a leading line. When looking at this picture your eyes are naturally directed toward the subject.
