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Tom, Nelly, SiowFong, and Lydia
Christine Falls
August 27, 2010
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Tom, Nelly, Ma Week, SiowFong, and Lydia
Narada Falls
August 27, 2010
Photo note: One of the challenges of making an environmental portrait, a picture that shows the individual(s) with their environment, is that sometimes it is difficult to include the people and the leading feature in their surroundings in the same image. In this picture, a wide angle lens was the remedy since its broad perspective encompassed the family and the waterfall.
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Family picture
Skyline Trail to Myrtle Falls
August 28, 2010
Photo note: The best place to take people pictures during bright, sunny conditions is in open shade where one finds pockets of soft light with even illumination.
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Family picture with Mount Rainier in the background
Skyline Trail to Myrtle Falls
August 28, 2010
Photo note: Although this image taken at 10:00 AM is decent, it would have been more striking had we been able to return to this same spot an hour before sunset today because of the following reasons: our eyes would not be squinting as the light levels would be lower; warmer, even golden hues would be noticeable throughout the picture; and light coming from an oblique angle (as the sun would be lower in the sky) would result in more detail in the flora.
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Family portrait just before we left the lodge to return home
Paradise Lodge
August 28, 2010
Note: Because Ma Wee visits us once every year to two years and because Nelly visits us once every four years, we made it an objective to take a lot of family pictures during their stays with us since we do not know when those opportunities will happen again.
Photo note: National Park lodges typically feature floors, walls, staircases, and ceilings made from natural, stained wood that produces the rustic atmosphere that the visitor feels when he or she visits these places. The predominance of this stained wood in the architectural details, particularly in the lobbies of these lodges, is detrimental from a portrait photography point of view since bouncing the light off the ceilings or walls from an on-camera or off-camera flash directs the brownish color cast onto people's faces. To avoid this problem, the off-camera flash was mounted on a lightstand to the right of the camera, and the illumination from this off-camera flash was directed through a white umbrella (which was also mounted on the lightstand)that was aimed at our family during this picture.
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Family picture
Skyline Trail to Myrtle Falls
August 28, 2010
Photo note: "Using flash to creat 'fill light' can do wonders for a portrait. It gives the subject a nice catchlight in the eyes (that's the trademark twinkle in the ey), and it also gives a more pleasing flesh tone, eliminating unflattering shadows and increasing color saturation for brightly colored clothes." (Gary Fong. "Fill Flash Outdoors," Shutterbug. March 2011: page 122.)
Note: All of these pictures were taken at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington.
