Continuing with my series of second choices from my 100 portraits project of last year. Breege met me in the botanic gardens in Glasgow, (a frequent choice for my subjects), and we spent a fair amount of time playing with this colourful bush to bring colour and depth into the portrait. It was fun going back to this one and adjusting the saturation and the “curves” to get the effect I wanted. I used the selective brush in Lightroom to reduce the mid-range contrast (clarity control) in the purple flowers to ensure that nothing distracted from Breege’s face. In the end we used one with the glass structure of the greenhouses behind Breege which you can find in my 100 portraits pages.
And look cropped sensor portraitists, I checked the data and again it was my 28mm f1.8 Sigma that brought home the goods. I still think the general advice on portrait lenses out there is poor. 100mm or its equivalent is to long for an intimate portrait.
