That’s right, we’re back in the Nichols Arboretum! The ‘Arb’ in Ann Arbor is such a treasure chest of great shooting locations, especially now that the fall season is accelerating. Last Friday was also my first visit since a couple during the summer and another last winter.

However this visit to the Arb was slightly different, as I had to shoot 4 girls as a group. These ‘Wilmot’ girls are current housemates and have spent a lot of time together during the past two years. Despite sharing all those experiences, one of them realized they didn’t have a decent photo of themselves as a group. And that’s how I — a male — crashed into the picture!

We set out a little late, so in total we shot for only about 75 minutes. That’s pretty short for a portrait session, especially a group one, and remember it’s already the second half of October and temperatures at night fall close to freezing temperatures. The girls had brought their winter coats, and shed them for quick snaps here and there. Between that, moving between locations, and scene set ups, there wasn’t much time left for actual shooting. Yet we ended up with 9 great final images which I’m quite proud of.

I realize groups bring a whole other level of complexity to poses. Now there’s four times the detail the look out for. Is the hair right? Where are the hands? Even I can’t catch everything. But I did do my homework and came up with poses and set-ups in my head before the shooting day. Some we managed to pull off, but others had to be canned because of the lack of shooting time and available light. In our last shot (the one with the wine party), it was so dark that I had to set up my new light stand with umbrella. First use in the field and it created good results. Soft and even lighting illuminated the three girls nicely.

Shooting group portraits are certainly more challenging than solo ones, but they can be more fun too as a higher level of dynamics are involved. I’ll just have to put more thought into poses the next time!

Enjoy the photos below and do leave comments!

[Show as slideshow]

For the past month or two, I’ve been silently (and secretly) building up the tools needed for a rather modest set up to take good portrait photos. This of course, is loosely following the business plan to dive into portraiture. Even though I’ve dipped my fingers into the numerous honey pots (events, news, weddings), I feel portraiture is so universally accepted that I have to offer this service as well.

This inaugurating series is a mixture of both natural and urban shots, stylistically a cross between and fashion and senior photography. My goal has always been to come home with one great shot, and this is probably it. That doesn’t mean all the rest were mediocre. Truthfully, I’m very pleased with most of them.

But the day started horrendously, with me not accounting for the swarm of mosquitoes at the Ann Arbor Arboretum. Half the time was spent whacking or scratching myself rather than hitting the shutter button. Lu, who was equally frizzled, still came up with some great poses, to her credit. We had brought along additional clothing to change, but the biting put a damper to that, and the photos weren’t half bad that we needed to switch out.

As this is my first time with portraiture, I went into experimental mode, despite reading lots about how to shoot and looking through hundreds of photos prior to this day. I brought two lights with me, but we most only shot with one. Without an assistant, all the work is on me, from creative concept to cheap labor to execution. While the both of us tried to come up with new ideas, much of my inspiration stems from Joe McNally’s Hot Shoe Diaries book, which I’m still in the middle of devouring. A review of that book will come soon enough.

In total we spent about 2+ hours shooting, over maybe five locations around the Arboretum. No way did we manage to cover the whole place. That concluded part one (the natural environment) of the photo shoot. Come back soon to look for part two.

PART TWO

The hiatus was longer than expected, but the wait was quite worth it. As said earlier, “urban” and “posh” were two critical words used as the creative force behind this second shoot. This time we had less time (it rained on us unexpectedly) and we stuck to one on-campus location for four of the five photos (the last one was in a residential house).

True blue Michigan Wolverines can probably recognize the urban background, but for everyone else, that’s the new wing of Michigan’s Ross Business School. This glossy extension to the old building of clay and bricks sticks out like a blinding light to the eye. The new building is more glass and concrete than perhaps any other building on campus. In terms of campus aesthetics, maybe not a good idea. But excellent for our choice of shooting that day.

However when we got there, the light was quickly fading. I tried to get the images to play more with the mighty pillars at the school’s front porch. Some worked, but it was also disappointing. Some ideas I’d envisioned in my head were a lot tougher to execute. Gear-wise, I didn’t have enough control over the lights. Sure makes my to-buy list longer by a foot! On my part, I do need to do more planning and preparation, rather than fly by wire and hope some inspirational lightning strikes me while on assignment.

[Show as slideshow]