First senior portraits

My parents have had a rough year with cancer and a major surgery between the both of them. My mom asked if I would be able to save them money and do some senior pics for of my brother. I did a photoshoot back in the spring for a girl at college but it wasn't a true "Senior" shoot. I posted a while back in the senior pics thread for advice and gathered as much as I could. I've been watching other threads and seeing what looks good and what doesn't...of course I have my own style thrown it. All I have is a 50mm 1.4.

These were the ones my mom wanted me to edit right away for her to see. I have 158 to sift through. Let me know your thoughts. I'm new to this stuff so I tried to stick with a simple backdrop to avoid too much distraction.

Don't worry, there's another location (football field) and some other outfits.

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Hello Taylor,

Sorry to hear about your hard times. Hopefully everything turns around and times get better.
As for the pictures, I think they came out very well.. I am not a professional so don;t listed to what I have to say much.

I really like number 1 and 3, 2 is a little to tilted, it throws off my eyes.
Try warming up the pictures a little bit, see if you like how that looks.

Hi Taylor,
Brick walls are not very interesting backgrounds.
In 2 and 3 don't have your subject so close to the background
It's much better not to photograph people with their shoulders facing the camera as in 2 & 3
The gray wood in 2 & 3 is distracting
Try and get a pose where elbows, hips, knees.. something is bent.
There's too much headroom in 1

I HTH B/C it's intended to be helpful rather than critical.

Sorry to hear about your family

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the feedback. Im going to do some more pics the next time I visit the family so hopefully I can take some of these suggestions and apply them.

For what its worth, I just shoot for fun. Its my hobby and way to relax after my work week. I won't charge for these and I don't intend on really doing more senior pics for anyone else besides family members.

This would be a more interesting crop of 1 :

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Frugal wrote in post #13451926
Hi Taylor,
Brick walls are not very interesting backgrounds.

i dunno - with a little editing the wood and the brick sort of look like an american flag! you probably have a lot of good shots - just work the edits a little.

blurry_image wrote in post #13452266
i dunno - with a little editing the wood and the brick sort of look like an american flag! you probably have a lot of good shots - just work the edits a little.

Any insight to some of the edits you made there?

got rid of the color cast first using curves
brightened your bro a bit using curves
increased saturation of brick and wood
added a bunch of contrast
burned a little more of the edges in to focus the attention on your bro

Used a different image from this string of shots. Slightly more narrow aperture (f2), warmer, more contrast. Still learning ha

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