Posing and Body Questions

I have a sitting coming up with a family of five. My biggest concern is that the father is totally bald. I don’t wish to emphasize his lack of hair. Are their any special tricks to help solve this problem?
Tonya

Dear Tonya:
No tricks but a few little things that will help. A high camera position will provide a “birds eye view” and is to be discouraged. Lowering the camera position will help by keeping the view more of the front of the head rather than the top.
You should also eliminate the hair light so there are no highlights on the top of the head further calling attention to the problem. For individual portraits, consider a mild accent light coming from the side of the subject rather than from above. If you gently kiss the side of the head with a touch of light, you have added depth and interest to the portrait without drawing undo attention to the bald head. Place the accent light about eye level with the subject coming from over their shoulder and keep the amount of light very small. My favorite way is with barn doors. You have total control and you get what you see because the changes are mechanical rather than electronic.
Another idea for when you have an individual rather than a group is to use a grid spot attachment on your main light flash head. The grid keeps the light in a column or beam. You can use this to your advantage and light the face without lighting the top of the head. Your light will be direct and have a hard shadow edge so use more fill to keep the shadows from being too black.
In special situations, it may be appropriate for the person to wear a hat. If it don’t seem a wrong choice, it’s another option.
The best technique for bald heads especially when you are doing a group is to select the background carefully so that it records on film as a similar shade to the persons bald head. Think about it. If the background behind the bald head is about the same tonal range as the head, then the head will not stand out from it. On the other hand, a bright head photographed against a dark background will really stand out. A bald head will also stand out against a white background. Your best choice is to find a background and light it so that it is about the same tone as the subjects head.

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Quick and Easy Couple Posing

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Scott,
I am about to photograph 200 couples/individuals at a party. We have been requested to do 3/4 length images. I have 3 1/2 hours which I can probably stretch to 4 1/2 hours. My concerns are, is this time realistic, will I be able to pose them standing and get flattering portraits. This question of standing the subjects or seating them is troubling me. I think that seating them will allow me to bring their faces together and show a more intimate pose. But seating them may take more time than I can allow.
Do you have a recommendation?
Chris

Hi Chris:
Seating couples will make the legs get in the way if you want them facing each other and that is usually better than back to back or front to back. If you stand them, their laps go away and you have much better control over the pose and can easily get them closer together. Standing works faster in your situation so keep it nice but simple. Arm around each other in back but not so far as to see the fingers coming around the other person. Heads tilted slightly toward one another and perhaps even touching. Let them hold hands such that their elbows are at the curvature of a banana and angle the bodies so that the man is slightly more directly facing the camera than the lady. This will insure that he looks bigger than her rather than the other way around. This should give you a fast and foolproof method of posing couples and still get a respectable image.

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Pale skin portraits

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I took some photos of a young lady who has very very pale skin, almost ghostly white. I used an umbrella fill measured at f8 and a 22" louvered parabolic metered with the fill at f11. I am not satisfied with the results as the highlight side of the face is pretty much blown out. It looks like there is density in the negatives so perhaps I just need to have the prints redone. Anyway, does anyone have any general advise for dealing with pale skinned people i.e. lots of makeup, higher/lower lighting ratios, softer/harder lighting, special posing, more/less hair light, lighter/darker backgrounds, etc.
Tom

Dear Tom:
While it’s easy to suggest any number of remedies for photographing a person with a very fair complexion, it really comes down to a couple of very basic issues. First, is the exposure correct for the film you are using? If you are metering correct, and I suspect you are, then you are indeed getting correctly exposed film. The other place to turn for answers is how the images were printed. If your film is exposed correctly then the only reason the images look unacceptable is because they were printed that way. The lab has enormous control over how images are printed. I run my own lab and if I so choose, I can print an image in any density or color. I can make you look light green or dark blue if I wish. The labs responsibility is to print the images correctly so long as they have a negative that is printable. Far too many photographers take the rap for poor printing and as a result blame themselves and then reinvent the wheel every time they see another crop of proofs. Rejoice! It’s not always your fault. If you are using a typical ratio for your portraits, metering correctly, and rating your film correctly, then there is no need to change a thing. A light skinned person requires no change in light sources, filters, ratios or anything else. They deserve the same flattering techniques that everyone else gets. Their lighter skin should pose no special problems.
The typical Caucasian has skin that falls roughly in the zone six range. About a stop above a gray card. A person with very pale skin will not fall much more than a stop or so lighter than this. This is not all that much lighter and falls well below the shoulder of the film.
You can use filters to alter the color of your negatives but the lab may very well print those off color too. Having a perfect negative is always the best choice. Fixing the mistakes of a lab is not something photographers should contend with. The lab is paid to print correctly. There are many fine labs who do great work. If yours is inconsistent, you need to talk with them about improving or find another.
The main issue is to avoid changing everything around because a person looks too something in your prints. Contrary to what some people think, the rules for photographing an African American and a very pale Caucasian are precisely the same. Look to your lab as a possible source of inconsistencies.