How I Made Sara’s Portrait

From the Best of Mark Toal

Last week I spoke at a workshop on how to use 4K video to shoot a model and grab a singe frame from the 30 frames per second to produce the final image. In case you missed it, here’s link to a blog post that I wrote a about how to shoot 4K photographs.

In 4K video capture each frame is a slightly larger than eight megapixels, more than enough for online use and even prints up to 12×18 inches.

For this image of Sara I set my Panasonic GH4 in 4K Photo mode and the 4:3 aspect ratio instead of the traditional 16:9 that is the international standard format of HDTV, Full HD, non-HD digital television and analog widescreen television.

I posed Sara in an open doorway. I stood outside so that the room behind her would be dark compared to the bright light from outside. The sun was above and slightly behind the building.

I asked Sara to move her head as I shot the video clip. For this image I had her slowly raise her head from where the hat covered her eyes to where they were fully visible. In Adobe Lightroom I played back the video and hit pause when I saw both of her eyes come out form under the brim of the hat. I saved that frame in Lightroom and then converted it to black and white in Silver Efex Pro.

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