another Lurker comming out

[caymiss]

Hello all,

I am yet another lurker seeking to learn and improve my skills. I feel I have learned so much in the past months here and see that one of the best learning tools is to just put yourself out there and ask for critique and guidance.

Here I go!!

Attached are a couple of images from a 1st Anniversary shoot I did for a local photographer. I am allowed to process and use these photos for my own portfolio under my contract with him. He will be meeting with me for a critique session soon, but I would really value additional commentary and suggestions about how I could improve.

I am not fishing for compliments, but would like reinforcement for what I did "right" and guidance for improvements I can strive for. Cropping suggestions are also welcome.

This Park is popular for Engagement and Anniversary sessions, so I expect to go there again in the future.

These photos were done as follows:
1. shot in RAW
2. imported into Lightroom
3. minor white balance adjustments
4. no cropping or other post processing at his point

Thank you,
Becky


There are also additional pics at -
http://home.cfl.rr.com/rhowie/
that have been cropped and downsized for the web.

[tim]

Welcome to POTN :) There's not images attached to your post, use the "manage attachments" function. The images on your website are 200-400KB, which is way, way, way bigger than they need to be. The thumbnails are huge images scaled down to tiny sizes too, which is wasteful of bandwidth. I'd suggest using a good gallery program like www.jalbum.net to manage your previews.

[kordan]

Love that 2nd shot, caymiss. cool pose

[caymiss]

Tim, thank you for noticing the size of the pics. Interesting, I ran them through the Lightroom Flash gallery and then pulled them out of the folder to put into a basic table. Didn't check the size since I assumed they would be small for web display. I'll have to rethink that tactic. I see my mistake with the thumbs too. Well, DUH, 4 me!

I'll fix that.

[italianfemmy]

Maybe it's just me but in the 2nd image, his face looks sharp and hers looks soft to me?

[howzitboy]

i like the second shots pose, but as italianfemmy said, the girls oof. bummers on such a nice shot. the first shot is okay but the bg is a bit busy. Id erase out all the people hmm nah , id just crop tighter then erase out all the people. lol.

[caymiss]

Oh my, thank you. I see that now. I really liked the second, also, but couldn't quite put my finger on what was missing. Looked back at the exif and saw that it was at f2.8 so my DOF really suffered.

I have not done any photoshop processing on these, so I wonder if I could mask and sharpen her some. And I wondered if the color spots (people) would bother others. They should be pretty easy to clone out.

OK, I have some homework for Saturday evening. Going to Viera wetlands to chase birds in the morning. Wheee!

[Grace]

I think these look really great. And I do think you can sharpen her face just a bit and it will be fine! :) Good job!