Mel_001

Popped along to a friend's shoot a week or so back, took a few snaps myself. Model shoots aren't my usual style, but was good just to be out using the camera and I'm still quite pleased with the shots I got. This one was shot in a little pagoda thingy in the Botanical Gardens here in Brissie, was using my friend's 580EX while he went to get coffee - I must buy one of these, they pump out a ridiculous amount of light.

For this shot the flash was being bounced off the ceiling, Mel was seated on a bench which I then stood on about two feet away to shoot down on her. The gravel/stone floor was pretty gross, ciggie butts and leaves around, but that's what f2.0 is for!

Initial post in Lightroom, primarily white balance and overall tonal adjustments. Added a small colour shift to the lips, then switched to Photoshop. Healed out minor skin blemishes and reduced the neck folds caused by the head-turn. Used levels and curves adjustment layers to brighten the whites of the eyes, then used an overlay layer to bring up the irises themselves. Cloned out veins running through her left eye. Now unfortunately, due to the early hour Mel had slight bags under her eyes - which combined with the light direction created pretty deep shadows, so these were cloned out with a separate healing layer which then was dropped in opacity to still try to maintain as natural a look as possible. Selective sharpening was then applied to the eyes, resize and watermark then saved!

As much as I love (and NEED) my 50mm for most of my work, I've decided the 85 is very much now my go-to lens for portraits...