Em portrait

As much as I like this photo, I find the shadow very annoying. I had

the flash tilted towards the ceiling, but obviously not enough.

Because of how I turned the camera, the flash was on my left. Any

suggestions on how to improve this would be appreciated.

Sometimes I'll use a rubber band to attach a white index card to the back and sides of the flash. I'll then point the flash at the ceiling. The ceiling bounce gives a nice overall lighting, and the light bounced off the index card usually pushes enough light forward to "dampen" the harsh shadow. Alternatively, have her stand a little further from the wall. Have fun!

Take her away from the wall...you can use a reflector on the right side too... If you use a golden reflector you are going to have a warmer effect....

 

I don't like to use flash for portraits...I have found that they could be much better with a softbox... Even with a home-made softbox....

 

You can try with a backlit background too...

 

Plese try to keep away the passport-picture look from your work. Play with shadows....Your daugther is very beautiful so i'm sure that you can make an excellent portrait from her....

Also, consider getting a flash bracket to hold the flash above the camera, even when you're shooting vertically. The shadow is more noticable because the flash was to the left of the lens.

Well, actually, you can work with flash, pretty often, it gives good results - but add a diffuser. Flash will increase color temperature of other light sources, which is essential for home studio, and a diffuser, perhaps configured the way Speedlite 550EX allows you to, will soften the light and probably add nice reflection in the eyes. Remember to use fill flash setting, which will reduce flash output and will prevent background from being underexposed.

 

Add relatively bright light sources (100 or 250W bulbs, for example, preferably "white", which means a bit higher color temperature) on the sides, for two purposes. One - warmer colors, two - no shadows. Try pointing one of them more towardsd the wall behind your model, and ask her to come one step closer to you. The closer she is to the wall, the worse shadow you'll get, really minimal distance even for a well-lit studio is probably around three feet. Another lamp should be closer to you, you can experiment with extact angle and height.

 

Don't despair if resulting skin tones are not perfect - e.g. too yellowish, too bluish or greenish - it all depends on light balance, but in some reasonable range, can be tweaked during printing or scanning (use "color balance" setting and try increasing magenta for greenish prints, etc).

 

Ask your model to wear some minimal make-up - as you can see, all skin problems look much worse on a picture than in reality. Have her play with her hair or do something - passport-like pose and looking in the camera is not very interesting. It takes a while to make woman look beautiful - and always, you are the one who sees how the print would look like. You can't ignore the smallest spot on the skin, you have to look carefully if her neck looks good in this particular pose. You are the director. In this case, I don't think it is helpful she's showing her teeth - sometimes, very discrete smile, or even sad or angry face is better.

 

That said, I just have to warn you I am a complete portrait newbie, so you probably should think twice before listening to me ;-)

I too am new at this, but here are my observations. Flash is difficult to use so I usually leave it off. Natural light from a window can work very well though. That's what happened here. Also, a front pose (the passport look) doesn't seem to work as well as turning the subject slightly to one side or the other. Just some thoughts.

I agree with most comments made so far except for Alan's suggestion to move your flash higher. He's actually half right though, move the flash higher AND to either the left or right of the camera. This creates better seperation of the subject and their shadow. Of course the one option I've been dying to try myself is to hook up a ring flash to your lens. I've been too scared to look at pricing for those though...At any rate, you're on your way...good luck!

This may have all been said previously, but a softbox or reflector would do wonders for this shot. You can even make a diffuser from toilet paper and put it over the flash to soften it. Pose the model turned slightly to one side or the other so the flash line doesn't run down the forehead to the nose. And move her out from the wall. Keep at it.