This is Laura, my wife, who is also the administrative assistant for Made in Murfreesboro Photography (i.e. my boss). Today we had my sister watching the kids, so we took advantage of the occasion and went to the studio to catch up with some work. Right before she had to leave, I thought of taking a few photos for the About page on our new website, and this is one of our favorite shots. As far as lighting on her face, I think this is one of my all time favorite portraits. Had we had just a bit more time I may have chosen a different background, but when you have three hungry children under 3 years old waiting for you at home, the background of a photo becomes somewhat of a second priority :).

I uploaded the original version exactly as it came out of my camera here. For lighting I used two SB900 flashes - one camera top left shot through an umbrella, and the other one behind Laura, zoomed all the way to 200mm and turned down to minimum power, shot into a 20x30 white matte board, which also happens to be my first choice when it comes to reflectors (I bought 50 of them for $80 at Jerry's Artarama about a year ago).

In terms of post processing, I used a couple of masked curves to darken the background, a little cloning to remove umbrella/reflector edges, and few slight color balance adjustments for the skin. The eyes remained exactly as shot.

As always, thanks for stopping by. If you, like most of us, are on Facebook, check out The Obvious Facebook page at Facebook.com/TheObviousPhoto.

Titus