Joseph Fanvu | Photography

Adding Texture To A Portrait

Joe — Mon, 13 May 2013 18:03:07 +0000

How Much Wood?

This image was taken for a scavenger hunt held over on Google+. Every couple months a list of 10 words are released and over 500 people sign up to create images based on these words. I’ve been participating for a while now and usually do pretty well with the results. This time, however, I didn’t get a chance to do any. Oh, I had plans for all 10 and sketched them out but just ran out of time. So with 1 hour to spare before the deadline, I decided to just throw something together and get 1 submission in. I decided to take the clue “texture” and make a quick self-portrait.

I didn’t have time to set up my usual backdrop and quickly just clamped a reflector onto a lightstand. I took out a speedlight, stuck it in a softbox, put my camera on timer on a tripod and took 4 or 5 shots. I chose this particular shot because I thought the hand covering the face added some drama and interest.

After some minor adjustments in Lightroom, I brought the photo over to Photoshop and added a second layer of this tree trunk photo. I changed the blend mode of the tree layer to multiply to have it interact with the original layer.

Using a layer mask, I masked out parts of the tree that I didn’t need and added a levels adjustment to brighten up the texture and add some contrast as well.

On a duplicate of the tree layer, I masked in the hand and used the transform tool to change the direction of the grain to match my hand. After getting the pieces in place, I used the displace filter from a displacement map to make the texture fit the contours of my portrait.

After some final tweaks and a crop in Lightroom, you get the final image you see here. I think it’s a fun image and it was well-received as I got an honorable mention and a couple second place votes! Drop me a line if you have any questions. I’m still learning and practicing but am more than happy to share what I know.

Twos Company, Threes A Crowd

Joe — Thu, 09 May 2013 15:32:17 +0000

Taken backstage at the Union Square Fire Dancing Expo in April. To learn more about this series go to http://josephfanvu.com/unlit

Why was this group shot more difficult to make than individual portraits?

First the technical: I was shooting a single speedlight in a medium softbox with a black foamcore background. With a single person you can stick that softbox right next to their face off to one side and you have this gorgeous directional light with nice beautiful falloff into the shadows. From there you can work with the pose and tweak the light to get the portrait that works for that person. I brought just one light because I’m still learning about off camera flash and really want to explore the possibilities of using just one light. With two or more people, things start to get more complicated. If your one light is off to one side, the light will hit a group of people unevenly. The person closer to the light will be more lit than the person farther away. There are multiple solutions to this of course. If you move the light farther away, the people become more evenly lit but the light becomes harder. If you swing that light closer to in front of them, the people become more evenly lit but you lose your directional light and the shot looks flatter. You can also have the person who is farther away take just a step closer toward the camera to try to even out the distance. I chose a combination of these three things.

Another thing I’m working on is posing people together. Trying to convey a relationship between two people when you only have a a couple seconds after you’ve met them to make an image is difficult! Stick a family in front of me and I’m good to go. If it’s a family session, I can use the relationship of the parents together and with their kids to try to make beautiful images that convey a sense of who they are and how they belong to each other. In a situation like these backstage portraits, I just had a couple of seconds to gauge their relationship to each other and work their pose from there. With more experience, I’m hoping to get better and faster at this.

In the before photo below, you can see examples of what I’m talking about. These guys were really tall and didn’t fit inside the backdrop. Nothing I could do there as I was backed up as far as I could. Although I guess I could have moved them away from the backdrop completely. My flash power was set too low so that is why it is a bit dim. (whoops) The light didn’t quite reach to the left and so I had to adjust in post. When they first stood in front of the camera they stood in a straight line. To give them some interest and a more dynamic feel I had them vary the angle of their bodies. Looking back at this photo I wish I had them change up their hand and arm positions as well so they weren’t all the same.

I had a fantastic time shooting these performers! With this experience under my belt, I have lots of ideas for the next time I get an opportunity. I have a lot to learn but I am getting better quickly! I look forward to trying out these ideas soon!

website redesign

Joe — Tue, 07 May 2013 18:09:41 +0000

Still working on the redesign of this page. Still tweaking things here and there and figuring out where things belong and how they work in this new wordpress theme.

My Fickle Friend – San Francisco, CA

Joe — Thu, 02 May 2013 05:02:46 +0000

My Fickle Friend – San Francisco, CA

Good Morning Sunshine – San Francisco, CA – family photography

Joe — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:04:50 +0000

Website update

Joe — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:10:10 +0000

Redesign of this website started April 26. Please bear with me as I get things set up. It’s been over a year and I need to get things in order. I think all the links should be okay during the redesign.

I Tried To Say No To Her Once – San Francisco, CA – family photography

Joe — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:02:29 +0000

A Better Man Than Me – Oakland, CA

Joe — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:10:12 +0000

Hold On – San Francisco, CA

Joe — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:58:55 +0000

Just A Little While Longer – San Francisco, CA

Joe — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:30:55 +0000