Portraiture

Photojournalism is hard work! And emotional to say the least. Trying to cover as much as possible the tragedy that struck Norway two weeks ago took a bit of an emotional toll on me. Being an Oslo resident myself, I, too, have been in shock and in grief. But when you go out with your camera to take pictures of the devastation and people grieving, one has to be professional and do his work, and not show any emotion.

It was a very rewarding experience to take pictures in the streets of Oslo, and to cover the rose procession alongside other photojournalists. But all this work meant that I really hadn't had the time nor the opportunity to sit back, process everything that has transpired in the last few days, and mourn.

So after the rose procession I decided to take a break. And now I am back, this time working alongside a colleague from the Oslo Camera Club shooting portraits in the studio. It was a lot of fun, so I tried to take simple, natural light portrait pictures of my best friend Renate in our apartment. I don't have the proper equipment for this. I wish I had the best spanking portrait lens the world has ever seen (in my opinion): the Canon EF 85mm f1.2L USM lens (pretty damn expensive!). But I will probably settle for the cheaper, f1.8 and non-L version which has also received rave reviews. For the photo session with Renate I had to make do with my trusty EF 24-70 f2.8L USM lens, which also produced very good results.

I know now why photographers charge quite a bit of money for photo sessions. The hardest part of the job is in the post processing, and to do it correctly could take hours per photograph! It's a good thing I am pretty much covered in that department: I still use Apple's Aperture with the retouching plugins from Nik Software (which are totally invaluable), to correct exposure, highlights, skin tone, etc.

Seeing how much fun this was made me wish I had my own studio so I can set up lighting and have a proper backdrop. But that will have to wait. In the mean time I feel that portraiture is something I will be doing quite often for now, so I need to get a decent prime glass to make the pictures even more stunning.

Equipment checklist:

The Canon EF 85mm f1.8 USM is the lens I can afford with the currently very limited budget that I have. I have read hundreds of reviews of this lens, and although it is a full 2 stops darker than the "big daddy" L version, but it still produces superb results and excellent bokeh especially on full frame cameras. According to many, this is Canon's best non-L lens. Price: NOK 3500 (PHP 30,000 approx.)

The "big daddy" Canon EF 85mm f1.2L II USM is something I will definitely save up for. It costs 6 times as much (NOK 19.000 or PHP 150,000) compared to the non-L, f1.8 version and weighs twice as much. I would probably be able to acquire this lens by the end of this year or in the early part of 2012. But then I will have to charge royalties for gigs. This, alongside my trusty 24-70mm lens means I would be in possession of the two "legendary" lenses from Canon. And you bet I grin whenever that thought comes to mind.