Male business portrait for Denis

Based on the objectives of the business portrait, we began to form an image for the shooting. Denis has a tall stature and slim build. Clean skin of the face and at the heart of an existing hairstyle. A pleasant addition was the fact that the model already had a wardrobe at this moment, forming the basis of the bows for the upcoming photo shoot. All this together made it possible to quickly reach a consensus in sets of clothes and form tasks for buying additional things. Over the next few days, Denis went to his preferred stores and brands to buy the missing items. For example, a brown coat was purchased at a Zara store. The model itself purchases, being in touch with me and sending photos in things from the fitting rooms to me through an instant messenger, where we all confirmed. Also, it was approved that light male make-up (applying tones) would be made on the day of the shooting to obtain natural smoothing on the original photos.

For a photo shoot of a male portrait with Denis, we decided to choose a weekday with cloudy weather. An important aspect of carrying out photography on the streets of Kiev is the number of people who are present at it, that was the reason for choosing a weekday. We needed to avoid falling into the frame of passers-by, which we eventually achieved. Cloudy weather provides a soft and volumetric light model, creating the desired shade on the original frames. In case of cloudiness there are no highlights, the exposure of the frame looks more natural. We approved 2 main locations: 1st - Photo Studio Icon, and we worked on the street in the Kievsky Passage on Khreshchatyk surrounded by fashionable boutiques.

At the time Denis arrived in the studio, Barber and a makeup artist were already waiting for him in the dressing room. Details of the image were previously approved with everyone, and on the day of the shooting there was no time to spend on discussion. An hour before the start of the photo session, the masters quickly did their job of preparing the model and then took a photo session. During shooting, I used 2 types of lenses: Portrait 85 mm and 35 mm wide-angle. In the first case, the 85mm was used on the f 2.0 - 1.8 aperture to achieve a gentle bokeh and leave the model in sharpness. The portrait lens creates minimal distortion of the optical shape, so that the photos from it correspond to what a person looks like in life. At 35 mm we made general shots, where it was important to show the scale and scene. The aperture of the worker was f 2.2, since the sun was at its zenith, albeit behind the clouds, which ensured the shooting with the necessary amount of light. In the first 30 minutes, we found a working profile of the model and suitable angles. Also, during this time, Denis was already accustomed to the camera and was able to relax enough to look natural and give the right emotions. At the end of the first studio stage, we went to the restaurant “SHO” in Pechersk and filmed the scene with a laptop, and at the end we went to Passage, where we shot the image in a coat.

According to the results of the shooting, we took about 350 shots in RAW format per day. Having unloaded all the material into Lightroom for previewing the original photos and selecting it, I found out that the percentage of rejects is extremely small, and the selection was carried out. As a result of the selection, I received +/- 250 files that went to work. The next step was color correction (photo painting) using the same LightRoom. In my work I do not use presets, I tune all the color exclusively with my hands, adhering to established standards, with many years of experience, taste and style. When the whole series was painted, I faced the most difficult task - to select a series of 25-30 photos for use in open sources, and the same photos were retouched (plastic). Since we initially prepared a model (make-up, hairstyle), it was necessary to retouch the details on the skin that arose during the super-approach. In the end of the day, we obtained the result, which is published on this page.