People Photos - Please comment

[grislybear5]

Hi All

I have taken some photos of my dear one. Just experimeting. Please comment on the photo and any touch ups I should do. Thanks

http://www.pbase.com/masai_chadi/people

Grisly

[Don Ellis]

Hi Grisly,

They're all fine keepsake shots. Great smile, lovely spirit. Now for taking them beyond the "happy snap" stage...

My favorites are #3 and #4...

Here's the original #3...

http://www.kleptography.com/dl/grisly.jpg

Distractions include the flash shadow on the wall and the off-angle picture frame near her face. Also, she's too "face forward to the left edge with too much space behind her -- sort of nose to the wall. But since that's what we have to work with, here's a different cropping...

http://www.kleptography.com/dl/grisly2.jpg

It's really cropped to much...I like the original scarf and all but I didn't care for the background shadow. This has become a wallet photo, which is probably not what either of us wanted. I straightened the picture frame and Auto-Contrasted in Photoshop.

Here the original #4...

http://www.kleptography.com/dl/grisly10.jpg

For me, there's too much white shirt below pulling my attention away from her face, and a patch of white on her shoulder that does the same.

I cropped it to a 3:4 ratio, Auto-Contrasted and Unsharp Masked at 50, 0.3, 0.

http://www.kleptography.com/dl/grisly10a.jpg

Except in special circumstances, I try to crop to standard ratios -- 3:4, 4:3, or 1:1 to emulate the medium-format appearance. Obviously, you can also use the 2:3 and 3:2 of 35mm. The long, narrow crop on shot #1 on your pbase link is best kept for a bookmark.

Again, lovely shots and I assume you'll have the opportunity to take more. Let us see them.

Cheers,

Don

[grislybear5]

Thank you, Don for your comments and suggestions.

I am working hard on convincing my wife to become my model!!! I will post some more photos later.

Grisly

[slejhamer]

Gris,

Don's comments are spot on. Avoid the flash shadow by not posing people against a wall - it's not a naturally attractive background anyway. Otherwise your use of fill flash is judicious.

The lesson learned from Don's crop is to move in closer when you can. Easier said than done; I keep learning this one over and over... :)

P.S. As "eland" noted in another portrait critique, zooming in rather than physically moving closer may be a plus. The zoom will give a flatter appearance and less depth of field, both of which are generally beneficial in portrait shots.

Cheers,

[eco_roy]

Don,

How could you show your pics directly here rather than showing the url links instead?

It is troublesome to click the url links to see the pics.

Would you like to give me some tips?


Roy

[Don Ellis]

eco_roy wrote:
How could you show your pics directly here rather than showing the url links instead?

It is troublesome to click the url links to see the pics.

Would you like to give me some tips?

Hi Roy,

To show your pictures here, you need to have them on an accessible site and then write in the address (see under Help). Grislybear offered a link to pbase because you can't embed pbase photos.

As for tips, you'll have to tell us what you want, preferably in a new thread, and I'm sure you'll get some help.

Don