Portrait of Nine-Year-Old Girl

As sort of a hobby, and to keep my skills up, I will on occasion, shoot model and actor headshots.  I usually set aside a weekend or two a month to shoot these headshots and I really enjoy it.  Besides getting what the agencies like, (big smiles with lots of teeth) I am always somehow drawn to shooting a few serious shots.  Even with shooting kids, like this beautiful nine-year-old little girl, I take a few minutes to shoot some serious shots, if only just for me.  There’s something really cool about serious shots of kids.  It’s like you get a glimpse into their souls or something.  It’s almost like you see the inner them, with all the fears, apprehension, hopes and dreams that haven’t even surfaced yet.  There’s just something magical about it…  Or, it could be my imagination… :o)

From a technical perspective…  I really am drawn to using a couple of my favorite lenses, either my 85mm 1.4 or my 130mm 2.0.  This portrait was taken with the 135mm.  For a close-up like this, the 85mm would of been to short and would of made the little girl’s nose too big.

The lighting for the headshot was from a large west-facing window in my strip district studio.  ON the morning we shot this, it was snowing and the light was really low. So low in fact that I shot this headshot at ISO 1200, which us usually higher that I like to go for a shoot like this.  But it worked and I like it a lot.  And yes, I have a ton of smiling faces to go along with my serious ones and the model, her mother, and two of her grandparents (that were at the shoot) were happy too…

If you’re interested in seeing more of my Pittsburgh headshot photography, please visit my site.