It’s been a while since I have posted. Between assignments, vacation, and everyday life time was at a premium. I’ll try and keep up to date with my postings. Pinky promise.
Headshots have all of a sudden been my bread and butter. One such example are the shots I did for Britney Boyd Dance Company. Britney, the owner, decided to go with headshots rather than dance compositions for their students and teachers. We had a lot of fun and got some great images.
I kept things simple: a half roll of white seamless and a 57″ parabolic. The para was large enough to provide key, fill, and, thanks to the inverse square law, a background that was about a stop under my subjects, resulting in a nice off-white shade.
I’m used to shooting headshots for older (like teens and twenties) dancers, models, and actors, and that’s my comfort level with posing. While there were certainly students in this age group, there were other, much younger, ones as well. It turned out that directing in this way resulted in some very cute images of these younger dancers. I was concerned that they would look “too old,” but in the end the cuteness factor won the day.
I offered a variety of print selections. It’s amazing how much retouching is required for large (13×19 or larger) prints. Everything shows, especially of headshots. I’m definitely not used to providing prints of this size for a headshot, but they did turn out beautifully. The Epson SureColor P800 with its Ultrachrome HD inks (ever see a $450 ink set?) coupled with the Canson Baryta paper is a wonderful combination – sharp, beautifully colored, and able to retain all the detail a 42 megapixel file can show.