Exercise 1: Your Own Workflow 1

For this exercise I chose to conduct a short portrait session with my eldest daughter. The shoot would need to take place indoors due to weather conditions, I set up a plain white background (to eliminate distractions)in my living room. The main light source would be daylight from the windows behind me, although I planned to experiment using flash for some images.

Through experience (and making mistakes!) I have arrived at a workflow that seems to suit me. I have not really ever analysed my workflow so my intention for this project was to follow my tried and tested way of working and then analyse what works and what does not at the end.

Pre shoot planning

Before beginning, I considered the following to ensure the shoot would go smoothly:

Preparation:

I knew my daughter would have a limited attention span so the shoot would need to be quick. With this in mind I wanted to ensure everything was prepared so I could begin taking photographs straight away.

• I prepared the room, rearranged furniture and set up the background.

• Checked equipment - battery charged, memory card formatted, lenses and flash. I arranged my lenses and flash in an easily accessible way to ensure I could change quickly.
• Quick assessment of exposure required - I used the cameras meter to get an idea of the exposure settings that would be required for the shoot. I planned to shoot in aperture priority mode so I could quickly change the aperture to alter depth of field. I set the ISO high enough so I could hand hold the camera comfortably and achieve a fast enough shutter speed but as low as possible to maintain image quality.

• Other camera settings - I would shoot in raw format and use automatic white balance. Shooting raw I knew I could alter white balance easily after the shoot, also, since I would be shooting under pretty constant lighting conditions I did not worry about this too much.

Ideas brainstorm:

Before beginning the shoot I jotted down some ideas of different poses and techniques to try.

• Poses
• Full body
• Head and shoulders
• Close up
• Side on

• Limited depth of field

• Frame orientation - mixture of portrait and landscape

• Flash

• Lens choice
• Focus setting

• Camera settings

The Shoot:

I prefer natural looking portraits so my aim for the shoot was to achieve an image in which my daughter looked at ease and for her pose and expression  to be relaxed. I began the shoot using a 50mm f1.4 lens chosen because the focal length would give a 'standard' looking result and I wanted to concentrate on composition and expression so did not want to be distracted by using a zoom lens. The focal length also provided a comfortable working distance from my subject and the large maximum aperture could allow for very limited depth of field which was an effect I wanted to experiment with.

I started with some full length shots and moved in closer gradually. My daughter was quite stiff and tense, her expression on the main a forced smile. I directed very little and worked quickly, I changed composition to head and shoulders shots, I encouraged her to pose how she wanted - she crossed her arms and tried to hold back nervous laughter. I asked her to sit and began the same process of starting from a long shot and moving gradually in, this time however I started from further back. I took a few shots from above and experimented opening up the lens to produce a limited depth of field. I attached my flash and tried a couple of shots - this was mainly as an experiment as my preference is for natural light and I only really use flash when it is a necessity. I did however want to compare this to the other pictures.

At this point I decided to change lenses - again I opted for a fixed focal length, this time 105mm f2.8 macro, for the reasons already mentioned. In the time I had changed the lens Caitlin had adopted a strong man pose with her arm bent to show her muscles. Her messing about amused her greatly and I recognised she was now relaxing - but maybe also getting bored. I appeased Caitlin with some shots of her posing before moving in closer for some head and shoulder shots while she held the pose. I experimented with some alternative composition and tried to include only half of her face in close up. I realised the photo shoot was approaching an end as I was being asked "are you nearly finished dad?" So I finished with a couple of head and shoulders shots.

Import:

I imported the pictures from my memory card via Adobe Lightroom (LR) - I had taken 117 images. I always import my images into folders organised by date as I have found to my cost folders named specifically can be extremely difficult to navigate. The real difficulty comes however when your image library begins to run into thousands of pictures - how do you go about finding a certain picture? Using keywords is a great way to add extra searchable information to an image - it is possible for this to take over however. When I was first experimenting with LR I felt like the process of applying keywords was taking up more time than taking photographs! Now I add a set of simple generic keywords after import (such as date and location) I then add more specific keywords after editing my final selects.

I renamed the photographs to the capture date and added some keywords (Caitlin, the date, DPP, OCA, Exercise 1.) I then exported the images into a separate folder for my OCA work. The reason I did this is because I had a number of other general photographs taken on the same day which I did not want to interfere with the selection process. I did not view the photographs until they were all exported into the new location as I wanted to view them as a whole.

First Edit:

My initial impression when viewing the images was that the red jumper Caitlin is wearing is extremely distracting. I simply photographed her wearing what she had on at the time and did not really consider this which was a mistake, especially since the strength of the red is increased when pushing up the light tones for a high key effect which was my preferred processing method.

I viewed each image one by one selecting and deselecting the pictures with flags (either pick or rejected) the only basis for rejecting an image was if it was obviously technically flawed. After this initial quick review I ended up with 48 images flagged as picks and 10 flagged as rejected.

Second edit:

Next I filtered the selected images and examined each one in turn making adjustments as required in LR (for example crop, exposure, contrast, saturation) I find this part of the process helpful as it requires closer scrutiny of each image. During this analysis I sometimes decide that the image is not a 'pick' after all and remove the flag (for the photographs for this project I deselected 9 images leaving 39 'picks'.)

So I know I have reviewed a particular image I apply a star rating - usually this is 3 stars but sometimes I mark lower at 2 stars to denote a picture of interest but flawed somehow and sometimes higher at 4 stars to denote that there is something special about this picture and that it is a possible favourite. I never mark pictures with 5 stars at this initial edit stage as I think it is too early to place the maximum rating on an image at this stage. Every few months I go through my picture library and revaluate, at this point I may upgrade an photograph to 5 stars but I have very few at this rating in my catalogue.

Final selects:

Sometimes the process of arriving at final selections can be extremely difficult, especially as in this case I have a number of images that are similar. I often find it useful to leave a little time between the second edit and making my final selection. Also, it can be worthwhile making prints as this can often show up both an images strengths and weaknesses - I sometimes like to pin prints to the wall to aid consideration over a period of time. In real life after editing down a batch of images I might be left with a similar amount as I have for this exercise, around a quarter of the amount shot. The problem then becomes what do I do with them? Under normal circumstances I do not take pictures with an end point in mind - the discipline of this project has focused my mind on the fact that this is where my workflow is failing. Going forward I think my photography would benefit greatly from this. Two ideas off the top of my head are that I could use personal projects as an avenue of following a theme or simply upload a minimum of two images from each photo shoot to Flickr.

For this exercise there was quite a gap of time between the pictures being taken and my completing the editing process. With 39 images flagged I went back and reviewed each one by one, I also reminded myself of my original aim which was to produce a natural looking portrait. I used red colour labels this time to separate my favourites arriving at a short list of 12 pictures.

To choose my final two images I went through the pictures one by one and relied more on my instinct to arrive at a decision. I was also conscious at this point to choose two images that would sit well together, in this case that meant two pictures that differed in some way.

My choices:

50mm f1.4 lens, ISO 1000, f3.3, 1/60 sec

 LR adjustments made:

Cropped to concentrate attention on head and shoulders, auto tone applied, auto white balance applied, white balance adjusted (+155 to 4800k, originally 5150k) tone curve adjusted (+52 light tones, -31 dark tones), red saturation decreased (-14), sharpening applied (+37), luminance smoothing applied (+33)

Analysis:

Caitlin's smile in this picture seems natural and unforced which is what I was aiming for and something that led me to disregard many other images. The tonality of the image is bright and strong which gives a modern feel to the image. (Interestingly however, the image is significantly brighter when viewed on screen in LR versus the picture I have embedded in this write up) The eye contact is strong and I like the detail, saturation and catch lights in the eyes. The composition is uncomplicated but slightly quirky as although Caitlin's head is straight in the frame her body is at a slight angle - maybe it is this small detail that led me to choose this image over the others as they are all shot straight on?

105mm f2.8 lens, ISO 1000, f3, 1/125 sec

LR adjustments made:

Cropped to 4x5 aspect ratio, tone curve adjusted (light tones +75, dark tones -7), contrast increased (+24), sharpening applied (+32), saturation decreased (-7)

Analysis:

The lower key and contrast in the tones of this image along with the landscape orientation are what attracted me to choose this picture. Again, the eye contact is strong in this image and although the saturation is less the catch lights still add an extra element. The white balance has a cooler feel here and the composition means less of the picture is taken up by the red jumper and white background.

Conclusions:

On the surface this exercise is extremely straightforward and is about actions to do with my photography that are second nature to me. To my surprise however I have found a number of benefits in exploring my workflow. Firstly, I think I have potentially misinterpreted the exercise completely. I took the purpose to be an examination of post shoot workflow and did not really consider the most important aspect - the shoot itself. For this exercise I was so focused on taking the pictures to use that I did not fully consider the outcome. For example the impact of the red jumper in the pictures, the folds in the white background (which could have been eliminated by having Caitlin stand a little further forward and having the background thrown out of focus), how shots with a lot of white background would influence exposure, having a clear idea of poses and compositions and offering enough direction to achieve these. The way I shoot is to keep an open mind and to use my instincts. This can work well and can mean I can sometimes achieve an image through experimentation that I would not otherwise have taken if I had been rigid in my approach. I feel I need to work on being able to shoot within boundaries however and focus on my intentions. If I was taking these pictures as a commercial portrait photographer I would need to ensure I had captured a number of poses I know work before experimenting. After analysing these pictures I should maybe have completed a second shoot using the knowledge acquired and see how many more shots are successful.

Approaching the post shoot edit I felt quite blasé initially - this is a process I complete regularly so felt there was little I could learn. Working through the exercise however I was struck by how many images and files of images I have not finished editing - basically I know what an effective workflow is but I do not stick to these rules myself. I began to realise that often this is because I do not have a specific output for the images - perhaps having prints made more regularly or even uploading to Flickr will help with this. Also, I probably think I am more effective at editing than I actually am. I can often be indecisive which can lead to inactivity, by putting my work in a position where it is open for others to see either as a print or on line should help focus my attention - if I have doubts about whether an image is good enough for others to view or not then it is likely that it should not be in my final selection.