So, let’s start by saying how thankful I am for all the amazing compliments this session got. It has been so encouraging and reassuring of my work. A lot of people have asked me how I got these crisp images and most importantly, how was I able to achieve the skin tones to stay true. Well, let me tell you. When my clients and I met during our consultation that was their concern, however, I made sure they knew I understood this. My mom and dad are a biracial couple, that being said, that has helped me identify how important it is to make sure that skin tones stays true to my subjects.
Here is how I achieved it:
I used OCF, a Nikon SB700 and if you ask me the power settings of my speedlight, I would not be able to tell you because well, I am very new at using OCF on location, so I just eyeball my power to what the back of my camera looks like. But I can tell you my camera settings were pretty much the same throughout the whole session, other than ISO slightly changing.
My camera settings:
I used Nikon D750 with my 70-200 2.8 at 200mm F2.8 S500 ISO between 100 to 500.
I used a cheap 47" Octagonal umbrella, which although it worked for this session, it was very cheaply made and I broke it, LOL.
I positioned the light always directed towards her. It was usually at her side about 3 to 4 feet away from her on a 45-degree angle. This way, the light fell first on her and less light on him, making sure she was properly exposed and that he did not get washed out due to his fair skin tone.
Postprocessing:
This was done in Photoshop, I did Frequency separation for the skin, some dodge and burn, add vibrancy, contrast, as well at some curbs layers and I did bring some red tones out in my background. No, I did not use actions, this was all hand-edit images and you can see before and after below.
Links for my OCF equipment: