5 Min Portrait - How to take LOW LIGHT Action Photos and Portraits
Follow along as I give you a first person perspective on photographing Maria as she works out at the gym. My goal for this 5 Min Portrait is to show you exactly how I handle a real world photo shoot. I make sure to stop and explain as much as possible throughout so you have a full understanding on how and why I made the changes I made. Click Here to see the full res exports from the shoot.
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This time around I broke out the Nikon D4s with four different lenses to make sure I gave myself plenty of different angles and looks. I used the Nikon 14-24 2.8, Nikon 24-70 2.8, Nikon 70-200 2.8 VRII and the Nikon 200-400 F4 VRII that I borrowed from BorrowedLenses.com.
I know some people like to keep one lens on their camera for an entire shoot and others worry about dust in the camera when they change lenses in the field. I am actually curious how many times I switched lenses during this shoot if anyone cares to count.
The reason I switch so often is I start to see different images in my mind. When I am in the situation something grabs me and says use this or that lens. I can’t explain it fully as it’s just a feeling I have when shooting. Sometimes you will hear me tell the model to hold that for a second as I switch lenses to get the right one on for the situation.
It is perfectly fine to direct your model even on a candid style portrait shoot. You want to get the shot, if that means asking your model to hold this or that pose for a little longer than you do so.
What I am looking for when I step into any situation to photograph is how can I capture the natural environment along with the subject. It is one thing to take simple portraits on a background but it’s another to capture someone in their natural surroundings.
When I break out any of my wider lenses I am looking to see how I can mix my subject in with their surroundings. This way you get to feel like you can see every detail of a scene. With that said, it’s all about a photo story. Being able to tell the story of the subject from portraits, to tight shots, to action shots and everything in between is always my goal.
I hope you are able to take some nuggets of information from a video like this. My goal in showing you the entire process from start to finish is so you can see exactly how I handle a photo shoot. There are no smoke and mirrors or secrets to doing what I do. What you see is pretty much what you get and I think that is the best way to teach.
I was so happy with how this video series turned out that I debated charging for it. When you combine the photo shoot with the editing video you are looking at 2 hours of what I think is some killer content. But this time around I chose to put it out into the world at no cost. It is possible going into the future I may release a small snippet from a shoot and offer up the full version and a small cost.
Editing Of These Photos
I wanted to share with you my process from importing to, selecting and finally editing this shoot. You get to follow me each step of the way as I tell you which images I liked and which images didn’t make the cut.
One of those questions I get asked all the time is “do you edit every single image you take?”. The simple answer is now, I select the “keepers” first then I edit just those. If you took 400 images and had 70 keepers what’s the point in editing the non keepers? For clarification I do keep all the images I take but I don’t edit them all.
Editing for me is based on feeling. Does the image feel better in black and white or color? Should it be very boomy or slightly flat? It’s a constant question and answer session in my brain for each image.
I do not use presets for my images as I feel each image is unique and should be tweaked on its on. The only exception I make is if images were taking one after the other and I can sync them in Lightroom.
There is no right or wrong way to edit your images. We all have our personal styles and ways of tweaking our images. No one style is right and no one style is wrong, edit how you see fit.
Thank you for watching these videos and I hope you enjoyed the 5 Min Portrait. To check out Maria’s YouTube Channel please CLICK HERE.
