Kristin in a Stairwell

Kristin wanted to do some photos that didn’t look “senior picturey”.

It was a bright, sunny day with harsh light, so we picked a stairwell in the shade with more flattering light. Looking up at the camera opens up the eyes with whites of the eyes showing under the irises. The downward angle of the camera also creates a different look. 105 mm is a good portrait focal length that creates a pleasing perspective. An aperture of f/8 gave me just enough depth of field, and on many lenses f/8 is one of the sharpest apertures.

When we were going over the photos later on a computer and experimenting with cropping options, we liked two different crops for this image, a tight crop (above) and loose crop (below). The place not to crop is at the wrists. That just looks looks odd.

The photo was originally created in color but the gritty stairwell just cried out for a black & white image. The conversion was made in Photoshop using a “Black & White adjustment layer”.

Kristin in a Stairwell

Photo Data: Canon 5D Mark III. Canon EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens at 105 mm. 1/60 sec,  f/8,  ISO 400.