need advice on setting up for portrait shots in senior center

[Geraldine Powell]

I have only been doing LF for one year, so I feel a bit intimidated by the project I have in mind. I want to go to a senior center and take close in B&W portraits using my 210 lens on a 4x5 camera. I want only the face and neck and perhaps a tiny bit of shoulder. I want the face to be well lit so I can get all the wrinkles and character lines.
Here are some questions I have:

I want an uncluttered background and don't want to rely on chance, so I thought about bringing a white or light grey foam board to put behind the subject. I don't know how I would secure it, and how far in front of it would be ideal to position the person?

If there is good window natural light I will try to use it, but I want highlights on the face, and if there is not enough from the natural light should I bring a small flood or a handheld flash or use something like a maglite to "paint" the face? I am going to experiment this weekend with all of these, but I would like to know if there is wise advice from people who can do this in their sleep.

I am thinking of keeping everything in the face in focus because I want to show how interesting reality is, warts and all. I don't want a misty look or out of focus look, but I still wonder if I should use a little adjustable focus to maybe move the viewer's eye to a particular area?

I know the experience may be tiring for elderly people, so I need to think of ways to make it as pleasant for them as possible. Maybe someone has an idea of how to do this?

Any and all advice will be most gratefully appreciated.

Geraldine

[jp]

Good idea to practice at home first.

Extra illumination could be from a work lamp (aluminum dish with a CFL) from the big box store, and/or a round reflector kit like the wescott photo basic 5-1. Keep their hair in mind with the lighting. If you're making the face detail important, you might want to be sure not to attract attention to the thinning hair of the women. Thin depth of field and lighting are important for this.

A 210mm lens fairly wide open should make anything in the background out of focus. How far to put a background behind someone depends on the lighting; further back and you'll need a bigger background too. Wherever, it will be out of focus.

[Michael Graves]

JP has some excellent suggestions. One thing I might add is this. If you are using window light, you should get a very soft and almost radiant effect as long as it is not direct sunlight. However, the shadow side might drop out more that you want it to. Stop by the local art shop and get a white foam board to use as a fill reflector. You can experiment with distance from reflector to subject to get the degree of fill that works best.

[Steven Tribe]

The good thing is that this age bracket still remember trips to the local photgraphic studio as children - much more pleasant than going to the dentist!

Don't forget that people are still interested in looking their best (not just the females, either!) so provide a large mirror - or arrange a parallel video camera and screen. And give them warning so they feel comfortable in the clothes they have on.

Do it groupwise - that is, with groups of 3/4 "kindred spirits" - with the rest of group around a coffee table set-up. Remember that senior centers have a very fixed daily routine and the period you use has to be chosen with care.

[jp]

Also if you have vintage camera equipment (<1960's counts); use it. You might bring up some nice conversations by their memories of old camera gear. This winter, I did a B&W environmental portrait of a local lady a couple weeks before she died. I used a rolleiflex on a tiltall tripod and she lit right up. When using a speed graphic at the race track, many of the elderly guys have stories about speed graphics they feel compelled to share.

[BrianShaw]

When I shoot older people, especially women, I find a soft-focus lens to be more to their liking. Alternatively would be use of a gentle SF filter.

[sully75]

Couple of things:

You are either going to have the face from nose to ears in focus, or you aren't. So...you have to choose.

I would not rely on out of focusness to cure a bad background. A cluttered or jarring background will still be annoying when out of focus. So...choose carefully.

If you are looking to get a lot in focus, that means you are going to have to close down. Closing down means less light. Less light means...you need more light. So. You may be at odds between using the window (great light, but sometimes not a ton of it) and using artificial lights. From reading what you have here, I get the feeling you have not used artificial lights much, so...might not be a good time to start.

You might just focus on doing really good window light portraits. That's an accomplishment in itself, and its own skill. In that case, you sort of have to let the situation dictate the picture, i.e. using as much DOF as the exposure will allow you while maintaining a good portrait shutter speed, arranging the background behind the window to suit the picture.

Two little secrets of window light, or basics, anyway, turn the subject towards the light enough so that there is at least a glimmer of light in the eye that's farthest from the window AND experiment with where they sit in relation to the window, i.e. are they at the front edge of the window (probably not) and they sitting near the middle of the window (probably) or towards the rear of the window (less likely but still possible). You could bounce some light with a white board towards the back of their head to separate their hair from the background.

This is a window light portrait I did recently that came out pretty good. Nice that the windows were up high a bit. It was a nice space in general. But like I said, in this type of photography, the environment dictates the picture as much as I did...my goal here was not to take the picture I was planning, but to find the best picture given the subject, camera and space.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7055/6918598237_1fd49bd0ab.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulmcevoy/6918598237/)
Jackie (http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulmcevoy/6918598237/) by Paul McEvoy (http://www.flickr.com/people/paulmcevoy/), on Flickr

[Geraldine Powell]

Thank you so much for all the ideas! I have been practicing and am beginning to get the idea.
I have one more question if anyone is still looking at this. When it is too dark and I have to use a hand-held off camera flash, I can't tell in advance what the flash is going to light and where the reflections will be. Apart from trial and error, is there any better way to figure this out?
Thank you again. This forum is great.

[cdholden]

Thank you so much for all the ideas! I have been practicing and am beginning to get the idea.
I have one more question if anyone is still looking at this. When it is too dark and I have to use a hand-held off camera flash, I can't tell in advance what the flash is going to light and where the reflections will be. Apart from trial and error, is there any better way to figure this out?
Thank you again. This forum is great.

Get a Fuji holder and some of their Polaroid-like instant film. You're already shooting 4x5, so you won't need a reducer back. Alternately, you could use a digital camera that allows interfacing with external flash (pc socket) and get a test shot for a preview before you capture to film.

[BrianShaw]

I'm not a big strobe user, but suggest you simulate the set-up beforehand and pop a flash to see the effect. Learning during the real session is very difficult and maybe a recipe for failure. You likely will need to learn how to soften the flash to avoid harsh lighting.

[sully75]

I would not start using flash on a project if you haven't used it previously. Practice on your friends.

I really recommend window light.

[Valdecus]

I'd start using natural light for this project, too. Even window light requires some practice, so maybe you want to start by simply placing your subjects in open shade. Then, add a simple reflector (gold/silver/white) to bounce some direct sunlight back onto your subject.

If you'd like to use flash in the future, a good place to learn more about (small strobe) flash photography is the Strobist website at
http://strobist.blogspot.com/

Cheers,
Andreas