Help with Portrait

I am new to portrait photography, I know that direct sun is harsh for portraits but I tried it anyway, and came out with this. What should I have done to help make this a better photo. I understand that this pose is lack luster, posing is not my strong point. And that the wall in the background seems wierd. I am mostly looking for help with the technical aspects of the shot. BTW: I did do some p/p on this. Thank you

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/scottkiz/574446​0380/

Could someone help me out with embedding please.

shot is pretty sharp. WB looks pretty good. Main issue with the shot is that the brickwork in the BG is nearly the same color as the subject's skin. The size of the brick structure competes and overpowers your subjects in this case.

dave

snyderman wrote in post #12454447
shot is pretty sharp. WB looks pretty good. Main issue with the shot is that the brickwork in the BG is nearly the same color as the subject's skin. The size of the brick structure competes and overpowers your subjects in this case.

dave

so the lighting doesn't seem off to you?

Unknown456 wrote in post #12454587
so the lighting doesn't seem off to you?

No, not really. It's a little brighter on my monitor than I would like to see, but nothing in the image is blown out and no loss of detail anywhere that I can see.

One of the things we learn as photographers is to consider more than the technical aspect of a shot. If this was posed, more consideration to the background should come into play. A darker background would have given more separation to the two men.

dave

Unknown456 wrote in post #12453624
What should I have done to help make this a better photo.

Unknown456 wrote in post #12453624
I know that direct sun is harsh for portraits but I tried it anyway, and came out with this.

I mean, i think you answered your own question just fine!

Seek out shade in harsh light, wait a little long/get out sooner in the day. I would've shot this portrait at a much more open aperture to help with separation of background from foreground subjects. Seeing that your photo was taken at 50.0mm i'd venture a guess that you were using a nifty fifty for this shot. Opening the aperture to f/2.0-2.8 would have given this photo a pleasing out of focus background and added that separation!

I agree that the background detracts quite a lot from the shot. It would look far better with just the dark green bushes/trees in the back instead of the wall.

JayZ235 wrote in post #12477069
I mean, i think you answered your own question just fine!

Seek out shade in harsh light, wait a little long/get out sooner in the day. I would've shot this portrait at a much more open aperture to help with separation of background from foreground subjects. Seeing that your photo was taken at 50.0mm i'd venture a guess that you were using a nifty fifty for this shot. Opening the aperture to f/2.0-2.8 would have given this photo a pleasing out of focus background and added that separation!

I did take some shots in the shade and they came out much better, but I know that it is possible to take shots in direct sunlight so I gave it a shot, as to the background,my brother didn't want to take these photos so I was tring to make it quick, so I wasn't as focused on the composition as I should have been. And this was early it was 7am. I was using a sigma 17-50. The reason I was using f/5.6 was that I was using flash to try to fill in some of the shadow, and when I tried opening up the aperture it was causing the photo to over expose.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/scottkiz/576022​4071/

Unknown456 wrote in post #12480506
my brother didn't want to take these photos

This might be the biggest factor that's hurting your photos. Not too often, but sometimes it's very unfortunate that feelings/emotions are translated through photography so easily, which in this case is hurting the photos. Props to you for working around him as best as you could!

Practice on a statue if you don't have a willing model.