Perfecting Portraits – Faith
Here’s another one of my Perfecting Portraits series.
I want to really master this basic skill before moving on to a more advanced poses and more advanced post-processing.
And also, I didn’t know why but I used raw + basic to shoot my portraits but raw ones didn’t show up in the photo gallery.
So now, I am using jpeg to post-process.
Model: Faith in Black and White floral dress.
Perfecting Portraits
… One angle at a time.
I came back with full of encouragements to really make it… improve my 0 level in Photography.
My mentor taught me the basics in posing (with right angles) and post processing.
I have decided to master the basics first before moving on. So here’s my first:
Model: My sister
Location: Hatyai, Thailand.
More of this type will be up.
Oh, by the way, I spent the whole afternoon post-processing this one. It was my first time, after all.. so you have to be forgiving. 
Girl Next Door
Photo Credit: Jonathan Kwok
My friend Jonathan took this photo for me. And I loved what he said about this photo. It looks very much like a girl next door.
Okay… I have heard that many times and I kinda knew what it meant. But I had to google the exact meaning of it.
And I got this very detailed answer from wiki.answers.com
I think a girl next door is referring to the stereotypical young female neighbour people might see everywhere they live who is nice, quiet, kinda shy, easy-going, not very adventurous, not overly busy, wih nothing really wild about them. Basically being “average” in many ways and very few things about them being over the top or extravagant. Peter Parker had the “boy next door” quality to him in the movie SpiderMan ( even though secretly he was much more). Basically, “next door” probably means personality traits that are pretty common place and that person probably doesn’t really stand out as opposed to something like “the girl from the ghetto” or “the girl from Beverly Hills” which would be two extremes. A “person next door” might have awesome personality qualities inside but they are often too shy to share anything unique about themselves to very many people and they are often too self-conscious to let loose, to show their excitement about things, to try new things, to be adventurous and to get involved in many different activities, groups and events. They might be reserved in many ways, where they are overly polite or they might worry about what others think too much. One thing they don’t seem to have is an edge to them that makes them noticably exciting. They don’t have that wild, flamboyant personality when you first meet them or first get to know them. Some may have it when they feel comfortable enough to open up, but it’s only the superficial qualities a neighbour would notice for a long time which is why it’s referred to as “girl or boy next door”ness. The opposite of “next door”ness would be an exciting, wild, flamboyant, adventurous, sociable person who is busy with all kinds of projects, groups, activities and events and isn’t afraid to express him or herself.
It is such an honor to have Jonathan as my mentor in photography. Having been doing photography for more than 20 years, he must have learned all the tricks and trades when it comes to creating great photos. I mean, we did this photo out of just giving me a demo on how to deal with “models”, how to engage the subject to trust the photographer, how to encourage the subject to pose and on which angle suits best. And it came out like this. I really love it. I am almost falling in love with myself! LOL. (Kidding). I can kid, can I not? (I meant my last line).
Anyways, it was just an amazing experience for me as I have walked side by side with him for a few days to shoot, then later on he showed me some basic stuff on post processing. I mean, there’s not a lot of photographers outthere who are so willing to impart their skills/knowledge… but with Jonathan, I felt that he was giving all. Such a generous soul, he is.
I am so grateful and honored, indeed, to have him mentor me.
I am a bit slow. But I know, one day, I’ll make him proud.
