Portraits | Page 2 | Paul Pratt | San Francisco Photographer

JaVonne

JaVonne Demauria Photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

This is JaVonne. We took him to one of the more colourful areas of San Francisco and took a series of shots on Sunday. This next photo was taken using the same setup as the image above but with our young subject having a little more fun in front of the camera. You’d never know it was his first time being photographed.

JaVonne Demauria Photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

Once again, the same setup; 3 Profoto Acute D4 heads running off a Honda Generator.

JaVonne Demauria Photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

One final shot using that same setup.

JaVonne Demauria Photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

Once we were done shooting inside we moved outside for a while. This time we set up a single head on a boom directly above JaVonne. In broad daylight at around 1/2 power I got this shot, I LOVE the zooming reflectors on the Acute D4′s! The confusing power switches that David Hobby recently talked about are another matter, but you get used to them.

All that aside, look at this kid! Confident? For sure!

JaVonne Demauria Photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

As the sun started to set outside we used it as a free light (after a few hours who wants to set up a second light!?), it worked nicely for just a touch of rim light on JaVonne’s face here.

JaVonne Demauria Photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

…..and put to use in a less subtle manner here!

JaVonne Demauria Photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

I’ll close this (image heavy but word light) post with my personal favourite of the day. This location had all of these things lying around already, none of it was added by me! This was a very simple shot, a single strobe in a softbox. Easy.

JaVonne Demauria Photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

Chai

I took Chai out on a very quick tour of duty this evening. We visited Golden Gate Park and the Marin Headlands. It was cold!

This first shot is from Golden Gate Park, we were inside a large group of flowering bushes….keeping an eye out for poison oak of course!

After we were done in Golden Gate Park we drove over to the Marin Headlands where we were presented with an epic sky. We used 3 flashes (2 x 580EX & 1 SB800) to light this. The sky is killer in this, I can’t believe our luck, usually all we get is grey clouds or rain!

This final shot is actually the same location, just 20 minutes later. I had to let Chai sit down….the poor girl was freezing and exhausted!

Thanks to Chai for being so willing to brave the cold and to change outfits in her car so many times!

Marianne

Meet Marianne.

Marianne Florendo photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

Marianne pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me think, which is a good thing! We started shooting in an old cargo container. Not the most interesting location but we made it work using a cross lighting setup. Marianne told me she was a little nervous, it certainly didn’t appear that way in the first shot of the day!

Marianne Florendo photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

We hung around in the container shooting for about 40 minutes and then packed up the gear and headed over to 7th & Harrison and shot using the Mac Dre Memorial Mural as our background. This right here was my favourite shot of the day! It’s shot above the sync speed of my camera so the black bar caused by doing this occluded the road at the bottom of the shot…no need for Photoshop that way.

Marianne Florendo photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

I’ll end with a shot using a simple setup , 2 lights behind Marianne at full power and a softbox up front.

Marianne Florendo photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

I really had a lot of fun on this shoot. Marianne was an incredible subject (thanks Marianne!) with a clear idea of the style of photos she wanted. I think we came pretty close to that idea.

Marianne is pretty much the last free shoot I had on my books. I’m officially ending my TFP project now…unless you can convince me otherwise!

Gem

Who’s using Twitter? You’re not? Why not?

Ninety Percent of the shoots I do these days come via Twitter requests, this shoot with Gem was one of them.

We shot these photos at 3pm on a sunny day with very little cloud coverage. We used open shade to help us out as we were using Canon 580EX’s as our lights. Usually I wouldn’t be brave enough to try and use these tiny lights in these conditions but the day before the shoot I went to a workshop taught by David Honl and he was pretty clear in stating that small hotshoe flashes are his main on location lights and that they are plenty powerful if you use them in the right way.

This first shot, as always is a simple headshot. A single 580EX in a 60″ reflective umbrella. I always start with a few headshots, I find it eases me into the other shots I want to try without much stress on me or the subject.

Next up we did a simple 3/4 pose using the 60″ umbrella as the main light but this time we put a 580EX with a full cut of CTO on it behind and to the left of Gem to give us a little extra colour.

Finally I want to show two very similar shots, in this first shot we used a single light in pretty much the same way as we did for the headshot.

In this next shot we kept the main light in exactly the same position but we added a second light with a full cut of CTO behind the tree/bushes to mimic early evening light at 3:30pm. The lighting diagram for this shot can be found on my Lighting Diagrams page.

So that’s it. Lessons learned:

1) It’s not too hard to shoot in the middle of the day with small hotshoe flashes.
2) CTO helps you mimic late afternoon light.
3) Get on Twitter.
4) Follow me on Twitter.
5) Follow John on Twitter.

Finally, thanks to John for helping me and Gem for being such a good sport. We only had an hour to shoot and she was willing to climb over a small river and up the other side to take these shots. If you are looking for a constant source of entertainment be sure to follow her on Twitter!

Howard & Esther

I was recently fortunate enough to shoot Howard & Esther in and around San Francisco on a particularly cold San Francisco afternoon. We went out into The Mission District of San Francisco. I had never shot a couple before so it was a great new experience for me. We started in an alley in the Mission District as it offered some wonderful color and a nice urban feel. I broke from my usual routine of starting with simple head shots as we were pressed for time (we had another location to get to across town). This threw me a little as the head shot routine I find eases you into a shoot & that was very much missed! In all we spent about an hour in the alley taking a variety of shots.

Howard & Esther photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

This was a fun environment to shoot in, there were a few technical challenges but that made it even more worthwhile!

Howard & Esther photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

Once were done in the alley we drove over to Pier 1 in The Embarcadero. A great spot but bloody cold! Esther was a real trooper and braved the low temperature for about 2 hours! I liked this location better than the alley and we had a lot of fun here. At one point a yoga class arrived, 50 people strong and asked if we could take a group shot of them. Umm, we have 3 small flashes with us, not gonna happen!

For this shot I was shooting directly into the sun using my modified Gary Fongdom. Once again the flash was at full power.

Howard & Esther photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

The sun dropped below the horizon before I was ready for it to, so I pulled out a second flash with a full cut of CTO on it and used it to cross light Howard & Esther. I think I saw this technique in the

Howard & Esther photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

I’ll end with a shot I loved as soon as I saw it. I love the way Esther is looking at Howard in this and that one side of her face is the only part of any face we see in the shot.

Howard & Esther photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

So, that’s the first couple shoot I have done. Would I do another? Definitely!

Many thanks to Howard & Esther for allowing me to shoot you…and for buying me coffee!

Dave

Dave photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

Here’s a simple headshot I took about an hour ago. I took it in the basement car park of our apartment complex using a Canon 580EX and a 43″ reflective Westcott Umbrella. I quite like the 43″ but it just doesn’t give out light as soft as I want so I ordered a 60″ (as recommended).

I took shots like the one above where I completely killed the ambient (overhead fluorescents) and a bunch of other shots where we used a second light and blew the rear wall to pure white. I’m enjoying this new found versatility!

Dave photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

Rob

A young man photographed by San Francisco Photographer Paul Pratt.

Sometimes I take a few shots where I purposely include the lights and I like them, so here you go….a shot with the lights in it!

Joe

A handsome young man photographed in San Francisco by Paul Pratt, a San Francisco based Photographer.

As you know I’m running a time for prints project so I can learn how to light and to build a portfolio. I’ve shot a few people now, but I knew all of them so it was easy to just go and do it with no stress involved. Of course, I can’t spend my whole life shooting people I already know so I was very happy when Michelle and Joe contacted me to volunteer as models. We met up this afternoon and went out in San Francisco for a shoot. I was stunned when 3 hours had passed in the blink of an eye, I probably would have kept on shooting and shooting but the Vagabond II ran out of power (note: I never used it in this particular shot)!

Big thanks to Michelle and Joe for volunteering and their patience!