Portraiture on a Cattle Station
It is a big misconception that excellent portraits require complex studio setups with lots of equipment and numerous assistants.
The setting was Goodliffe Station - a cattle station in Central-West Queensland, home to James and Liz, son Stuart, and daughter Melissa. In December, we had a photography workshop up there, and the participants - John, Pam, Rebecca and Mindy convinced Liz and Melissa to model for us. Pamela, being adept with the makeup, set to work on Melissa, while Liz hid away and hoped to get out of it - although she was not let off, and eventually came out to join us in the hay-shed.
That's right the studio for this shoot was the old corrugated iron hay-shed.
We did go to the bother of setting up a posing table (two bales of hay and a saddle), which provided the perfect environment for these two very capable horse people. Both are setting the world on fire with the Cutting Horse performances, so look out for them when you are out and about at the big Cutting events, like the Tamworth Futurity.
In addition we used a large reflector on the ground in front of the hayshed to indirectly reflect light onto our subjects. For this shoot we largely used the gold warming side, but could have as easily have used the silver or white sides for slightly less warming effect.
The important things for the shoot in this sort of setting are:
Comparative depth - ensure that the background is about 2x (or more)further away from the subject than the camera
Subject out of direct sunlight, but lit by the reflector - not directly, but more softly.
Use an appropriately small aperture - for the length of lens you are using, so that you have sufficient depth of field to get the whole of the subject(s)' faces or other parts, that you are interested in, sufficiently sharp to look the way you want it, but for the background to be buttery soft. On many inexpensive cameras, this will be the largest aperture that you have (or the smallest numbered f-stop).
If you don't have a reflector, make one ... white card, a white sheet, aluminium foil, polystyrene foam (a wonderful soft white reflector) will do equally as well as the more expensive reflectors.
So, to see the results, look at the Goodliffe Portraiture Gallery and tell us what you think, or ask some questions ... remember, Blogs are supposed to be full of communication, so if you don't make some comments it will sound rather one-sided.
Want to have a Portraiture Clinic like this one in your location? Well, let us know about your interest, and we can discuss the possibilities. We do Personal Training and Private Workshops all around Australia.
Good shooting, great light and make some wonderful portraits.