This past weekend, we’ve been back down in Devon to continue the house hunting and to spend more time with very dear and close friends of some 25 years.

I’m sure over the coming weeks and months I’ll keep you posted with what’s going on but for today’s post I thought I’d give you a look at some new portraits; ones that I took this past weekend of our friends in Devon at their home just before we headed. Our friends Sean & Ashley live in a truly stunning house in Devon with wood beamed ceilings and floors, thatched roof and a garden that when you come through the side entrance feels like stepping into Narnia 🙂

Anyway, the portraits were all taken using natural/ambient light and my 85mm Canon f/1.8 lens, mainly because I wanted to keep things simple and also the last thing I wanted to do when visiting friends was to turn up with a pile of kit.

So, here’s some of the pictures of Ashley and underneath you can see both the location and how they were taken…

In the BTS (Behind the Scenes) photograph below you can see Sean being photographed in the same set up and location for the shots I took of Ashley above.

Sitting them in front of the wooden door meant it would make a great dark background, especially as the curtain was being pulled to restrict the light from that part of the room and also to give the light more direction onto Sean / Ashley.

Now as for the position of Sean / Ashley, although side on to the window, I’ve then closed the curtain a little to prevent the light falling straight onto the side of them. Closing the curtain then means that the light will be hitting them from further forward and then it’s just a case of playing with how much or how little you close the curtain for the look you’re after. On Sean below you can see that I’ve positioned the curtain so that it puts the side of his face on the opposite side of thew window into shadow all except for a slither of light on his cheek.

For the picture of Sean below we moved into another room, and rather than positioning to one side of the window or using curtains to control the direction of the light, Sean sat facing directly towards the window from further back into the room, whilst I sat with my back to the window to take the photographs…

I guess I should also touch on the retouching for these pictures too right? Well, this is where I did things a little different. You see the retouching for each of these pictures ranged from all of 5 seconds to maybe 30 seconds and that’s purely because everything was done in Lightroom and using some new Black & White Presets created by my Buddy, Photographer John G.Moore.

•    •    •

Ok so that’s all from me for today so I hope you like these new portraits and that this post is useful. As always, if you have any questions/comments then feel free to make use of the comments section below and I’ll be sure to reply.

In the mean time though, have a good one and I’ll catch you back here tomorrow.
Cheers,
Glyn