Outdoor Portraits

I decided to take some outdoor photos before the winter weather took over. Luckily we got a break in the clouds and got some really bright winter sun. I experimented with the aperture, ISO and white balance to try and get some good shots in the changing conditions. I decided to use a cloudy white balance, an ISO of 400/800 and a F/5.6 aperture. I used this aperture to get a small depth of field focused around the subject. The ISO and white balance were selected to get a quick shutter speed and brighter colours.



This is one of my original photos from the shoot. As you can see it has a very monotonous background, and the subject is very windswept. I decided that for this shot I should use photoshop to alter it to make it seem less amateurish.



In this attempt I tried to make it look like a black and white photograph. I used photoshop to darken the shot and increase the contrast, I applied a vignette around the edges, added a grain texture and applied a black and white filter. I think this makes the image seem much older. The grain texture especially helps it look more like a film photo and the vignette helps to reduced the brightness of the background and helps to naturally increase the viewer's focus on the face. In a way this photo in reminiscent of Yousuf Karsh's work, of close portraits taken of the shoulders up.