Flcikr photographer - how to emulate?

Loire

Hi all,

There's a photographer on Flickr whose work I think is great:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/75571860@N06

I am taking more and more photos of my kids and would love some photos with this "feel". I think the photographer has 2 advantages (apart from knowledge)...a super location with sunshine, lakes, snow etc and, perhaps more importantly, kids who are comfortable in front of a lens!

From my persepctive I was wondering how I could go about taking photos like this, particularly the soft effects with back-lighting in a natural setting. Any ideas where I should start? Do you think there is a fair amount of Photoshop being used and if so any pointers here as I'm a total newbie regarding PS!??

Apologies for all the questions I am throwing up here at the moment too, just itching to improve!

Thanks,
Loire.

DaireQuinlan

The bits you potentially CAN emulate...
1. Compliant children.
2. Beautiful rustic locales.
3. Backlighting.
4. A small zoo's worth of animals.
5. Quite a lot of editing.

Plus there's all the other bits you CAN'T emulate.

Loire

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

The bits you potentially CAN emulate...
1. Compliant children.
2. Beautiful rustic locales.
3. Backlighting.
4. A small zoo's worth of animals.
5. Quite a lot of editing.

Plus there's all the other bits you CAN'T emulate.

I know, it's all a bit "magical". However, from a lighting / soft effects perspective, where would I start?

Loire.

magicbastarder

taken on their own, some of the shots are good. but looking at the feed, they begin to come across as very contrived and posed. closer to product photography than a record of her kids.

Loire

magicbastarder wrote: »

taken on their own, some of the shots are good. but looking at the feed, they begin to come across as very contrived and posed. closer to product photography than a record of her kids.

I agree actually. Still, I'd love one or two like that..

Loire.

M.J.M.C

Hey Lorie

There was a rather interesting post on reddit, someone asked the exact same question - The pics of the kid and the dog reminded me of it.
Trying to find the thread here but can't locate it. It's here some where
http://www.reddit.com/search?q=Elena+Shumilova

The TL;DR - Photoshop..........lots and lots of it!

For example, look at this pic of hers http://i.imgur.com/bFgckGj.jpg
If you look around the kids shoe and the surrounding sand - some of that should be in focus

Anyway, someone with some good photoshop experience posted a good reply, sorry I can't find it.

Loire

M.J.M.C wrote: »

Hey Lorie

There was a rather interesting post on reddit, someone asked the exact same question - The pics of the kid and the dog reminded me of it.
Trying to find the thread here but can't locate it. It's here some where
http://www.reddit.com/search?q=Elena+Shumilova

The TL;DR - Photoshop..........lots and lots of it!

For example, look at this pic of hers http://i.imgur.com/bFgckGj.jpg
If you look around the kids shoe and the surrounding sand - some of that should be in focus

Anyway, someone with some good photoshop experience posted a good reply, sorry I can't find it.

Thanks for that! I'm not sure whether I am a fan as such, but I would love to achieve the lightening effect with the kids in the garden!

Edit - some good info here http://www.reddit.com/r/postprocessing/comments/1vd9ry/how_do_you_get_this_effect/

Loire.

Tiriel

http://www.reddit.com/r/postprocessing/comments/1vd9ry/how_do_you_get_this_effect/

I think this should help you! I'm curious too, I love seeing how other people edit their work and trying to figure it out

D.S.

Loire wrote: »

Hi all,

There's a photographer on Flickr whose work I think is great:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/75571860@N06

I am taking more and more photos of my kids and would love some photos with this "feel". I think the photographer has 2 advantages (apart from knowledge)...a super location with sunshine, lakes, snow etc and, perhaps more importantly, kids who are comfortable in front of a lens!

From my persepctive I was wondering how I could go about taking photos like this, particularly the soft effects with back-lighting in a natural setting. Any ideas where I should start? Do you think there is a fair amount of Photoshop being used and if so any pointers here as I'm a total newbie regarding PS!??

Apologies for all the questions I am throwing up here at the moment too, just itching to improve!

Thanks,
Loire.

Hey Loire,

I have been experimenting myself with some of these styles (though not claiming to have been successful )

From what I can see, the vast majority of this work looks to be photoshopped heavily..(I also agree that to me, as a body of work, it's slightly contrived, but in isolation some of the shots look great). There are a number of techniques I can see in play:

In Camera:
- great use of composition and model posing (though a lot of the shots i reckon were composited in post)
- under exposure of image, high contrast effect
- brenizer effect (a v neat stitching technique) for some of the backgrounds, I suspect
- good understanding and use of colour palettes (scenery / clothing)
- good use of lighting (I reckon it's mostly natural lighting with maybe some use of reflectors)

In Post:
- Lots to say here:
- great knowledge of colour palettes and colour treatment - i reckon there are a number of treatments going on (from using the curves/levels/colour balance adjustments, to desaturation and saturation of elements of the images, effects (e.g. nik), to textures (which are using images of other real world textures such as walls / floors etc and overlaying over the image)
- Background treatment looks to include a lot of different techniques including blurring to increase the feel of a shallow depth of field image, and bleaching of the blacks to soften the image.
- good knowledge of skin retouching (removing blemishes, spots, to high frequency separation)
- good use of dodging and burning
- good use of light treatment (e.g. graduated filters, vignettes etc) to focus on the viewer on the most important elements of the image.
- lots of compositing (fog, snow, atmosphere, people/objects, sunset effect)

Overall - the photographer seems to be keeping a v consistent look and feel throughout the portfolio - seems to be only 3-4 predominate styles in play - all on a desaturated, earthy tonal palette...

A lot of those more recent images look like they are overexposed in the highlights (hence why she has bleached the highlights in the RGB curves layer and in the blue channel to soften this up) - I am not mad about that myself and think that potentially, those shots could of been better exposed (but maybe she was limited by equipment/lighting)..

For me, i do think the shots are overdone in a few places, but there's a huge amount to be learnt by trying to emulate the style for a bit as you pick up your own style...

This style requires a good use of composition, in camera technique, lighting, model clothing / posing, and then post processing. In isolation - none of the above post processing treatments are that hard - go to phlearn.com or any of the other online tutorials and you will pick up the individual treatments v quickly. The hard part is making all the treatments come together to get the right look and feel. Maybe allow a bit of time to get all this right as there is a lot to learn.

I recently just started studying colour, and have been blown away by just how big, and difficult a topic it is. (Maybe I am not just a natural here and it's easier for others - black and white seems to come a lot more easier to me but do love getting a colour treatment right)..


All the best,
D.S.

Loire

@D.S. - thanks for that. There's so much to learn!

Loire.

eoglyn

D.S. wrote: »

I recently just started studying colour, and have been blown away by just how big, and difficult a topic it is. (Maybe I am not just a natural here and it's easier for others - black and white seems to come a lot more easier to me but do love getting a colour treatment right)..

Hey D.S., don't want to drag the thread off topic but i think the OP has gotten a comprehensive answer, any chance you can share some sources for your study?

For the past while I've been fluting around with lightroom sliders and curves trying to get certain looks on individual images, with limited success.

D.S.

eoglyn wrote: »

Hey D.S., don't want to drag the thread off topic but i think the OP has gotten a comprehensive answer, any chance you can share some sources for your study?

For the past while I've been fluting around with lightroom sliders and curves trying to get certain looks on individual images, with limited success.

Hey eoglyn,

Look am not sure if what I am looking at is really going to answer your query if you are trying to emulate certain looks / styles (e.g. film effects) as that's more than colour treatment - there's a range of techniques used to create certain looks.

However, just in case it helps, what I have been looking at is how colours works together. If there's anybody here who has done an arts / graphic design / photography degree / course, they'll probably speak to it better, but in short:

- a lot of my colour shots were working for me (or not) in my first year, basically because I was getting lucky with colour.
- I personally didn't have an appreciation for how colour works (hue, saturation, luminance), and what combinations of colours went well together, or that there were different types of relationships within the colour spectrum (analogous colours, triadic etc)
- for awhile, I was trying to create images in camera and post process, and my colour images just weren't right

Some good links to get you started are:
http://theartofphotography.tv/episodes/color-theory/
https://luminous-landscape.com/colour-theory/

I definitely think some people get colour naturally, and some people (like me) just have to work really hard at it. I find I work far better in black in white, than colour.

I can send over more articles / links if you are interested- I have gone off and started studying some photography and non-photography related materials on colour to try and get a full appreciation (some of the graphic design stuff on colour is pretty neat)..

By far the best tool (and I am using a lot right now) I have come across is adobe's colour wheel. I use this quite a lot right now to try and get my colour treatments right and consistent..

https://color.adobe.com/

In terms of emulating certain styles - there will often be a lot more than just colour treatment going on, so I am not sure if the above will help. What I do, for what it's worth, when emulating styles, is:

- create a clipboard of a number of shots in the style I am trying to emulate
- try to study and understand in camera technique, and post technique for the shots in the clipboard. I have viewed quite a number of tutorials now so you can usually pick out some methods that might work. The trick sometimes is also to figure out the use of textures / effects.
- sometimes I'll pull an image or two into photoshop, use the colour dropper to pull out the specific id's for some of the colours, and then I'll pop that into the adobe colour site to see if the photographer was using a specific colour palette (e.g. triadic, analogeous) along a certain spectrum. Can be quite useful..
- for the image itself that I am working on, I'll always create a plan, literally drawing up in photoshop on a layer with my wacom pen how exactly I'll post process the image, and then working through my layers. If I am not getting the desired result, I'll amend my plan and keep going. It's a bit trial and error but works for me, but allows me to get an understanding of what I am doing, so it's repeatable.

The above works for me as I tend to only work on 1-2 shots from a given shoot. I don't mass produce shots.

Anyway - hopefully I didn't pull this thread too off topic..

eoglyn

D.S., that is brilliant, such a comprehensive answer, i did mean the colour theory - the first part of your answer. Everything you said is really useful. Thank you.

almorris

Personally, if I was trying to emulate that photographer, I'd start at the bottom of their feed. Deconstruct the techniques there and work up. I see a progression from using natural light and less post at the beginning.

M.J.M.C

Lorie,
Elena Shumilova did an interview http://news.smugmug.com/2015/05/04/how-to-photograph-your-kids/
It's a bit high level, if you're still interested.

Also:
http://www.diyphotography.net/take-magical-family-candids/

diomed

All the photos are of women and children, so the photos appeal to women.

DaireQuinlan

diomed wrote: »

All the photos are of women and children, so the photos appeal to women.

Eh disregarding the idiocy of the above,

I read that interview with her. I was thinking ho hum, Tip 1, totally true, my kids do exactly the same thing.
Tip 2, errr ok, my wife is mostly involved in buying clothes for my kids, I'd have a hard sell trying to push that one in ... "just white. Plain white clothes. Also beige."
Tip 3, also totally true. I don't do it so much now but I used to just constantly shoot my kids, there were some keepers :-D
Tip 4, whatever, never really tried.
all looking good so far ...
Tip 5, WAIT WTF "but 14 full photo shoots, all failures." FIFTEEN DAYS OF SHOOTING THE SAME KID AND THE SAME DOG. That's a whole lot of effort for 'spontaneous'

M.J.M.C

Tip 6: Photoshop

eoglyn

Q: How is this done?

A: Serious dedication

The kids clothes is the thing that got me - the decision to exclusively dress them as 19th century farmhands seems a bit... mental.

While she may live in a cool spot with lots of cool animals, she goes the extra mile and finds the perfect locations and perfect light.

Photoshop skills are consistent, which is cool.

My only criticism is, and this is only one image, her most famous pic, the one that blew up - of her boy with her giant dog, processing is a bit messy around the dirt. any reason for this, i would thought it was a five minute fix to tidy this up??

Reoil

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

3. Backlighting.

Had a quick look - which photos have backlighting?
There's certainly a lot of editing going on...

.Longshanks.

Reoil wrote: »

Had a quick look - which photos have backlighting?
There's certainly a lot of editing going on...

Insert Not sure if serious gif

Back lighting.... Almost all of them!

DaireQuinlan

Reoil wrote: »

Had a quick look - which photos have backlighting?
There's certainly a lot of editing going on...

quite ... a ... few of them ?

Reoil

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

quite ... a ... few of them ?

Sorry, blonde moment. I ...misread the back bit, I thought you meant studio lights. Disregard!

.Longshanks.

Q&A session with the photographer in the OP:

http://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/3577rv/ama_with_elena_photographer_extraordinaire/

Gehad_JoyRider

magicbastarder wrote: »

taken on their own, some of the shots are good. but looking at the feed, they begin to come across as very contrived and posed. closer to product photography than a record of her kids.

But that doesn't mean that Loire can't take some sort of inspiration from the images and apply certain styles to her own. As for posing sure what shes doing is imaginative and nice to see, Its better then the black/white back ground baby portraits that some idiots try to identify as photography.