Stephanie

I'm a landscape photog by passion, but a friend asked me to take shots of his daughter for her HS yearbook. The good part for me is that she went to modeling school, so all I had to do was man the camera. I don't have lights, so we went out early last weekend. Took quite a few shots, but this one stands out the best. I'm interested to hear what you all think and if there is any way to improve this processing wise.

lighting is a little harsh or alot harsh- a reflector to bounce light under her chin would have been sweet

Bryan Grant Photography wrote in post #13073358
lighting is a little harsh or alot harsh- a reflector to bounce light under her chin would have been sweet

I agree. The light was too harsh. Also looks like she was squinting because she was facing the sun.

I do love the pose and jealous of the DOF and bg blur. Very nice.

Great pose, great smile.

A few things - in portraits, shade is our friend. It gives the best even lighting. Then, you can work use reflectors, flash (if you want), etc to shape shadows and such for non-flat lighting. It looks like you had some shade toward the bottom of her torso, so, maybe having her take a few steps forward would have helped?

Second, shoulders square to the camera tends to look more aggressive than if you were to have her move, say her right foot about 4-5 inches back. That would put her shoulders at an angle, and make the frame a bit more comfortable. Although in this case, she does such a good job connecting with the camera (and the viewer) that it's hardly noticeable.

d8

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'll be sure to keep them in mind the next we go out. In the mean time, here's a couple more from the morning, obviously from a different location. These were taken much earlier and the sun wasn't quite up yet, hopefully producing a much softer light. Due to hardware limitations there was quite a bit more processing involved with these as noise was much more of a challenge. I tried to choose photo's which met your suggestions. Is this closer to what you had in mind?

IMO over-processed skin

Here's another shot at the first one. I tried to take out some of the harshness of the light.

J-Blake wrote in post #13075548
Here's another shot at the first one. I tried to take out some of the harshness of the light.

The "harshness of the light" is defined by the highlight to shadow transition and specularity, and can not be taken out by any photoshop technique. It is directly related to the relative size of the light source.

your processing is too harsh, in the 1st one her eyes look very fake and in the 2nd & 3rd one her skin is too over done, tone it down a bit and you can have some great photos next time

Thanks guys/gals. I'm soaking it all in, and learning from my mistakes.

Here's another from that morning. I chose this one based solely on the sun's being shaded from her face, even though the sky is blownout. I also attempted to process in a more natural manner.

No improvement?

How about posting one w/o your skin treatment?

rsieminski wrote in post #13091565
How about posting one w/o your skin treatment?

Agree. A bit overcooked.

Sure. Here's the last with no PP.