Bass Guitar

A shot of the bass guitarist from my friends band during rehearsal. Probably one of my favorite of my own shots. Would love your thoughts!

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Needs fill flash. Subject under-exposed.

The light background is the killer on this one. Your camera appears to have metered for it and rendered the subject underexposed. The sun was the source there. It looks like tungsten room lights lit the guitarist. A fill flash would help. You might try to re-position yourself with the bright background behind you and lighting the subject.

Looks like a very narrow DOF as the headstock is out of focus (maybe motion blur), you might try a higher aperture. Probably a low light situation in the room so it's gonna be tough. When shooting guitar players, I always try to get the entire instument, it's their pride and joy after all... Another common error here is you cut the feet off..
What you did capture is intense concentration in a creative environment. Most musicians will work with you if they know you are shooting... Keep at it!!

Thank you everyone! Actually, the room was semi-bright. Its probably a metering issue (me being completely clueless about metering). The studio is a 12th floor penthouse with a glass ceiling and glass walls on three sides. The ceiling was draped in fabric creating a "warm" glow during late afternoon.

Feet, a definite agreement with you on that one, I did screw up a bit on that. I re-did the image in lightroom a bit, see if you like this version a bit more lighting wise. This was shot with a canon 24-70, at 70mm on a 550D ( I later learned that my 24-70 was defective and returned it, waiting for a 24-70 II to come out to get that instead).

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The edit is better but it still has a yellowish tint to it.

White balance looks WAY off! To be honest, it looks like something you'd shot form your phone's camera. I'd agree that his expression is great and shows concentration, but it deosn't matter because his face is out of focus. You've also got parts of the keyboard and keyboard stand on the left that are blocking what you're trying to capture. A few steps to the right would have helped that.

Shots like this are one reason I like shooting in RAW- can fix the white balance in post if for some reason I forgot to change my setting or didn't get a custom white balance. I'd also spot meter on his cheek and expose for that instead. Just my 2 cents though.

This was shot in raw, I will work on it more to see what I can come up with. Also if you like I can post the raw somewhere to see what you guys can do to the WB issue...

Good shot but could use a little more PP.

David

Ok, take three and my last

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I think if you slide your exposure up a little bit in your RAW editor it might help. My last post was commenting on the 2nd edit that you posted. With regards to the original you posted, maybe you can slide your exposure up a bit. Maybe even the fill light slide instead.

One thing to remember, and what I always tell myself when I'm processing any photo I shot is that photography is very subjective. What one person might like (PP-wise) another might not. Some people like warmth in their photos, some like to see them exactly as they would be seen with the eye. That's the greatness of photogrpahy- we can manipulate a point in time to make it look any way we want.

Dude, 3rd edit = totally better with the WB IMHO! Sweet! Third times's the charm I guess. A good candid shot, and more pleasing to the eye than the original and 2nd edit.

Waaaaaaaay better!!

Lots of room for more light on him -

Quick job based on your last posted image:

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I'd also considering cropping just below the bass.
You'll see him intensely focused on the instrument and more of the background clutter/noise gets dropped out.