Piano Reflection Portrait

This portrait is from a spontaneous photo shoot. I had three great subjects (sisters), perfect light, and a baby grand piano to work with, and I almost always have a camera and one or more lenses with me.

A Seven Minute Photo Shoot

I used the black surface of a baby grand piano to create a subdued reflection. While I do like a mirror reflection once in a while, I usually prefer the softer, darker reflection I get from the polished black surface of the piano.

The soft, semi-directional light coming from a long window at camera left provided beautiful light for this kind of portrait.  Photographers imitate this kind of light in their studios with a big “softbox”.

The background was too “busy” to suit me with various kinds of wood and fabric in a variety of colors. I had two very nice volunteers (the other sisters) that held up the piano cover (which is black fabric) behind my subject to provide a nice, clean background that complements the dark areas of the piano’s surface.

My subject isn’t really resting her face on her hands since that would scrunch up her face. Instead, I had her touch her face to her hands and “pretend” she was resting her face.  She was leaning over the surface of the piano which is an awkward position to begin with and uncomfortable to hold for any length of time.  I had the camera settings all ready to go, the light was pre-metered, and the background already in position (which was tiresome for two young girls to hold with their arms straight up in the air). I worked quickly once my subject was in the pose I wanted.

An aperture of f/5.6 gave me enough depth of field for her eyes and most of her face while blurring the texture of the black fabric background that was right behind her. I boosted the ISO to 800 to give me a useable handheld shutter speed of 1/30 second (which works when using a lens with image stabilization). A focal length of 67 mm provided a pleasing perspective of the features of her face which would be lost with a much wider focal length on a frame filling portrait.

I photographed all three sisters. The total time for this spontaneous shoot from first frame to the last (22 frames in all) was less than 7 minutes (not counting a couple of minutes to set up). I took the first photograph of this sister at 11:57:34 AM and the last at 11:58:04 AM, a total time of 30 seconds. This was the second of five frames (and two different poses). Sometimes you get what you want right off the bat.

Post Processing

Tonality Correction in ACR

The window was stained glass (one color), which altered the color balance of the light, so I did a tonality adjustment for this when I opened the RAW file in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). (Ordinarily I would do a custom white balance at the time of the photo shoot, but I only had a few minutes to create this image in the camera.) To see a before and after example of a tonality corrected image, go here.

Then I did some light retouching with Adobe Photoshop, saved the master file, flattened the image layers and create a printable file that is optimized for one of my favorite online professional labs. Total time in ACR and Photoshop was around 30 minutes. This is the first photo I optimized today and I began writing this article right after sending this photo to the family.

Photo Data: Canon 5D Mark III. Canon EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens at 67 mm. 1/30 sec, f/5.6, ISO 800. The light coming through a stained glass window was adjusted for color balance with Adobe Camera Raw.

Links

To learn more about portrait photography, lighting, working with the color temperature of the light, metering, and depth of field, read Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies. It has excellent reviews from professionals and amateur photographers alike, and a five star rating at Amazon.com. Learn all about it here and order it from Amazon.com.

The more adept you become at using ACR, the better your images will be.  Read Mastering Photoshop & Lightroom: Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). ACR comes with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and Adobe Lightroom.

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