Using Digital Backgrounds - A Unique Twins First Holy Communion Portrait Session
- MuSen
- Jun 7, 2016
- 3 min read
I had the honor to conduct a unique First Holy Communion portrait session for a pair of girl/boy twins back in early May. In this session, I used digital backgrounds frequently. Let me show you three of my favorites first. Note that images' quality has been reduced for web presentation purposes.
My session always starts with pre-consultations as I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for me and for my clients. Very often, clients' dissatisfaction arises when photographers failed to meet their expectations. And in most cases, it is because expectations have not been communicated well before the session.
I have built into my website a section called "Session Prep" (http://musenphotos.wix.com/home#!session-prep/gb3vj)which contains a one page password protected survey to help collect essential information that would help me prepare the session. But simply enough, clients can just send me favorite images they collected elsewhere or from previous portrait sessions to help me understand what they want out of their sessions.
For this First Communion session, Mom sent me images she collected from Pinterest. They are mostly outdoors. For example, a girl sitting on a flower swing in her First Communion dress, a boy praying under the sky in his First Communion suit, etc. I clearly understood what she wants but also realized there was a challenge: those outdoor locations and props are difficult to find around us and weather had not been in our favors to conduct a session outdoor.
The thought process led to the decision to utilize digital backgrounds. A wise use of digital backgrounds can help clients to achieve certain desired realistic looking outcomes without having to go through the extra miles and thus save both the photographer and clients time, energy, and costs. The entire session was then set up indoor with a dark grey muslin backdrop as the main backdrop. A few images were taken with a beach backdrop. There are two reasons to choose dark grey - it is a medium color between white (the girl's dress color) and black (the boy's suit color) and it also is a preferred background color for preparing digital cutouts to be used with digital backgrounds(which I plan to explain later in future blogs).
Most of the session images were delivered on traditional, classic dark grey background. Some are on the beach background. Each image was touched up lightly (in order to preserve children's natural beauty) with color correction, skin tone balance, and blemish removal. Selected images were given black/white and/or light cast effects for a different look and feel. Qualified poses were further edited with digital backgrounds. I also kept in mind throughout the session to play fair with the twins and tried to capture equal amount of images and poses with each one of them. Below are some sample images from the session. Note that images' quality has been reduced for web presentation purposes.
Examples of images on traditional/classic dark grey background and beach background.
BTW, did you notice the bouquet was added digitally? I provided the Mom both with and without version for her to decide which one to use.
Examples of images with additional B/W and/or light cast effects.
Examples of images with digital backgrounds.
There are two types of digital backgrounds. One is a flat wallpaper type. And the other is called 3D or with layers where you can insert your subjects. Some 3D digital backgrounds even come with more editing tools to give your images more dreamy and realistic look. In my session I used both. Please always remember to obtain your digital backgrounds from a reputable source and pay attention to terms & conditions of use, especially if it is provided to you free of charge. Things like whether it is allowed to be used for commercial purposes, whether attributes are required, so on and so forth, need to be checked before you decided to use them. Just like photographers don't like their work to be stolen, you don't want to steal other people's work even sometimes you might not do it intentionally, thus obtaining them from a reputable source can give you a peace of mind.
Enjoy the images from this beautiful session and contact me if you have any questions.
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