A twist to a portrait

I'm not one for the standard portrait. I do not like posing people on a chair in front of a screen, propping them up like... a prop, just to get a fake smile to put in your wallet. But what I do love to do is capture my friends at total random, and at extreme close ups. Yeah they hate it, but secretly I think they like how they come out after I "work" the photos.

Anyway, here are two extreme close ups of my friends with different actions and masks applied.



This is another portrait of my good friend Jen. She is always willing to have her photo taken, and can you guess why? She’s cutie who likes to laugh and smile... See? This one I only did some simple edits. I upped the contrast by a few points, and then softened her just a tiny bit. It's perfect. It portrays exactly what it should... Jen, laughing and having a good time. Heck, it makes me smile.



Here is my friend Steve. He's crazy, but in a good way. I took this photo, with my SB900 attached but pointing off to the right. It gave it a nice bounce light on his face and kept the left side in the dark. I then ran a portrait action. I boosted the contrast and lowered the saturation. I smoothed out his skin a bit, but not too much. I still wanted that gritty feeling. Then I popped his eyes a little to give them that little punch. And there you go. I really like how this came out.