Cory Vincent - Northern NJ Photographer

CORY VINCENT PHOTOGRAPHY

- Professional Services -

Cory Vincent Photography specializes in portraits of children, newborns, individuals, families and corporate executives. All sessions are done on location, making the client (especially children) more relaxed and comfortable. Weather permitting, I like to shoot outdoors for the natural, warm lighting.  The setting is your choice: I prefer "candid portraits" as are shown above and below. And as always with Cory Vincent Photography, if you are not satisfied with the results, YOU PAY NOTHING.

Window Lighting

When recently photographing a child, I shot the necessary posed shots. After a few setting changes, I let him walk around and I followed with the camera.

He started looking out the window to see who was coming. With just the natural light I captured this shot. I performed some post work and rendered a great candid portrait.  Window light is important. Especially for the amateur photographer without a lot of money in the budget for expensive lighting. Even the big wedding photographers use this technique as it provides great soft indirect lighting on the face. The low saturation (except for the red sweater) and the timeless outfit give this portrait a very classic look.

Post work: decrease saturation - but INCREASED saturation in sweater. increased the contract, burned the edges/corners.

Aim, don't smile, SHOOT!

I do not enjoy studio work as a general rule. To each his own, but to me the lighting is contrived, flat, boring and typically unflattering. I do not have much of a choice in the winter, I need to shoot things indoors and if I am forced to do it, I like to make it interesting. I usually play around with the lighting until it looks, well, UN-studio like. In the shot above the lighting is more harsh, but it adds a lot of character. I used a $30 black collapsible background and we set it up in the subject's kitchen. SIMPLE.

This subject does not like the way he looks when he smiles. So, I didn't make him smile. Don't always think you need to pose your subjects smiling. Try different expressions. Try to make them laugh; or maybe it's a tough guy and he can look aggressive. Kids are great. Have them make scary faces or silly faces. They can pretend to cry or be sad. In the shot above we got a smirk. Mix it up.

Photo above setup/post: Subject sat on chair against wall, with black background behind him. Softbox strobe on camera right (only a foot or so away) and umbrella on low power on camera left (to lighten shadow and pull out ear). I adjusted the contrast and "blacks" when converting the TIFF. You will see some other shots from this session in future posts.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!