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Portrait of me by Rachel. I have been doing a few studio portrait sessions recently, my models are usually friends or family. Quite often in the middle of a sitting I will hand the camera to the model and suggest we swap roles for a few shots. Usually these pictures are an embarrassment mainly because I will start pulling silly faces. This time I seem to have a benign smile with possibly the tiniest hint of anxiety as I realised that the strap to my precious camera was not around the shooters neck.
In the title I say not quite a self portrait, well it wasn't at all a self portrait, as I said, Rachel took the picture and I just stood on the shiny side of the lights. But, I had total control of the post processing, as you may know or can imagine this is a position of great power.
To be fair to myself I did use some restraint, all the wrinkles are still there, almost all anyway. Some spots and blemishes were removed, then I applies skin softening by using a Photoshop plug-in called Portraiture by Imagenomic. Portraiture smoothed out some of the colour differences or blotchiness in the skin. I need to work a bit on my technique here as I seem to have a very red nose, not at all fair as I hardly ever drink.
The next step is to return the fine texture to the skin, this I achieved with another Photoshop plug-in called Detail 2 by Topaz Labs by using a setting similar to their micro contrast enhancement preset.
The shadows on one side of my face were enhanced, I didn't reset the lights for my role as model but a little help from levels is all that was needed.
Finally The background was replaced with a texture downloaded from the generous and talented Jerry Jones at Shadow House Creations, thank you Jerry. Another Topaz Labs plug-in, ReMask 3 was used to mask out the existing plain background and allow for an alternative.
I often see interesting or attractive faces in real life, but haven't yet plucked up enough courage to ask a stranger to sit for me in my little attic studio. I am relying on word of mouth to provide me with a steady stream of willing models. Who I wonder will be next to get the sensitive light treatment.
Portrait photographer Graham Jeffery, Hinckley UK.
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