B&H Photo Portfolio Development: A Visit To A Park

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m participating in a portfolio development series with B&H Photo. I have 2 tracks to follow – one more of a grungy artsy path primarily using my girls as the subjects and the other using young girls with a classic/old fashioned look to them. I’m starting with my girls since I have much easier access to them. 🙂

My younger daughter is a great sport. She’s usually happy to oblige in my photo visions. At least she was as of this session There have been a few more since then and I may be wearing out my welcome!

So we decided to go to a park that I hadn’t been to yet in Westchester. It’s fun and inspiring going to new locations – not knowing what to expect.

I had her wear a particular jacket and floral top. I tried out different hairstyles mostly tied back in a low bun and then a side braid with ribbon – both kind of messy.

None of these images have smiles Fro my personal work I like more serious, expressions. For the first 2 photos, I had her up against a wall that had great texture. I added even more texture in Photoshop to give it more of a gritty look which I felt looked better in black and white.

For the next one I had her sitting on a bench surrounded by lots of flowers and trees. I shot through the leaves and because I was using my 70-200 lens with a low aperture, it gave that great blurry swirly background. I tried it out in both color and black and white and added texture to both to give it more of painterly feel. To me the color version has an aquatic feel to it whereas the black and white version is more mysterious.

For these next 2 I was looking for a softer feel and made use of the sun going down and tried out back light – something I rarely do. This first one has some problems with composition. I cut off her leg (oops!) and since she’s looking towards the right, it would have been better to have her on the left. She’s just looking off the edge of the image. But again, there’s something I do like about it.