Walt, this is where some understanding and experience with light pays off. Light coming from the same direction as your lens shows no surface shadows. Angled or oblique light shows increasing amount of surface detail. Light coming from 90 degrees to your lens will reveal a lot of surface detail by casting lots of shadow. Worst of all (for skin) is hard light -- a point source like the sun -- coming from right angles.
It's a very bad plan to side-light a person's face with hard light, especially if they have imperfect skin. If they have great skin, they've had proper makeup and/or you intend to do retouching you can get away with it. It's generally best to illuminate women with soft or diffuse light. Light coming from a large number of angles fills in the shadows and hides skin imperfections. Open shade is better than glare sun. Flash through an umbrella is better than bare bulb. If your subject's legs have mottled skin then do what you can to either hide it or avoid angled light falling there. Have her cross one leg in front of the other, have her stretch her legs (eg pointing toes), block sunlight from falling on them, etc. Poses that tighten or stretch the problem skin can help. You'll find lots of posing tips in webinars and videos if you Google a bit. Look up Christa Meola. She shoots "ordinary" women and makes them look glamorous. http://christameola.com/ Her book is excellent. Also Jen Rozenbaum. http://www.jenerationsblog.com/ On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 1:35 PM, Walt <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks, Marnie. > > It's strange, but when you (or I, at least) see the girl's thighs in person, > there's not the slightest hint of cellulite. Of course, I suppose that's > something I just overlooked. > > I did try fiddling with getting that out of a few shots using a "skin > softening" brush in Lightroom. I just wasn't thrilled with the results I got > and need to go back and learn how to use it more effectively. > > -- Walt > > > On 5/18/2013 10:53 AM, [email protected] wrote: >> >> I'd photoshop out the cellulite on the back of her thighs. Okay, I do not >> understand men's fascination with photographing women. Heh. And often the >> model is one I think isn't that great looking, even though the men >> usually >> do. >> >> Considering all that, nice gallery and I like the shot you like best too. >> >> Marnie aka Doe :-) >> >> In a message dated 5/15/2013 10:25:28 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, >> [email protected] writes: >> I finally managed to get the young lady I've been pestering for a photo >> shoot to get out and take photos yesterday. Here's one of my favorite >> shots: >> >> http://www.flickriver.com/photos/walt_gilbert/8741925218/ >> >> Here's the rest of the gallery should anyone take a notion to have a >> look. For some reason, Flickriver isn't showing any photos in the set, >> so it's a standard Flickr set. >> >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/walt_gilbert/sets/72157633486638871/ >> >> -- Walt >> >> > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. -- -bmw -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
