A few from Recital Picture day

Here are a few shots from my wifes dance studio's picture day. This was my first my first big project as well as my first time useing lighting other than an sb-800 flash. Parents loved them and I learned a lot in the process. I basically took all of the comments and criticisms that were expressed by the parents, when the other photographer took the pictures, and tried to address as many as I could.

My Son(turned 4 on the April 15th):


A head shot of the one of competition team girls:
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My son's best friend/ god sister/ girlfriend:

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Him stealing a kiss:
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Thank you for the replies. I was shooting with 4 ab800 with 42" white/black umbrellas. 2 were positioned behind the dancer facing toward the background and 2 were off to my right and left sides at the corners of were the background stopped. As far as the height of the umbrellas, I had them set where the bottom of the umbrella could touch the tops of their head if they walked under it or just a little higher.

I shot teathered to a laptop using the nikon camera control software and a usb cable. I shot raw and jpg because the jpeg transferred and displayed in about 3-5 seconds raw about 5-8sec.

I had my wife posing and another person taking the orders and writing down the picture number that the parent had chosen. I just fine tuned the posed and took the picture.

The process was smooth and the parents didn't have to wait more than 15-20 min. According to them no longer than before. And loved being able to see the pictures before hand. I only had 3 out of 100 that I had a little of a problem with about getting the perfect picture and retaking. I would then offer my comment on the best picture and get the wife to back it up or make the decision for her in a nice way.

Stuart:
I agree on the crop. I just grabbed it out of the finished picture folder. It was cropped for a button.

Thanks again,
Larry