Single light critique

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Interesting series.

1. Body is very well lit and the face/head needs more light to balance. Currently, the head is dark and the body is light. Too much difference between the two for me. Busy background has too many distractions...vertica​l lines, knob, doorframe. i think I'd really like it if his head was turned about 90 degrees to his right.

2. The body and face have a better balance between their lighting. I'd still like a little more of the left side of his face lit.

3. My favorite of the three! The torso has a "bodyscape" feel to it with the deep shadows. I'd like just a bit more light on the face, but not a lot more. With the strong shadows on the body, the face doesn't require as much light to match it.

I wonder if pointing the flash up a bit more would help light the face better. Is it fall off from the speedlight that causes the head/face to be darker?

Thanks for sharing the series!

It's a good series overall in my opinion. I agree with cpam.pix about trying to balance the lighting on his face a little more consitantly with his torso, but it's definately not bad the way it is. I actually really like them the way they are.

A few nit picks, if I may:
#1: there are 2 bright spots on his left arm just inside the shadow area around the bend of his elbow (light reflecting off his arm hair would be my guess) that I would either clone out. There's also a spot at the top of his head and in his right eye that I would do the same on...clone out. They seem out of place and distract since they're in the shadows.

#2: Another bright spot just off his left hip and a few on his chest but what irks me the most is his left bicep. The way the light falls on it you can see the definition in his bicep and it's well lit bit the shadow on his arm makes his arm look super skinny. It's a little difficult to explain, but just take a look at it. Maybe tone down the highlights on his bicep or bring the shadow up a bit to "blur" that very well defined shadow line.

#3: Bright spot in the center of his torso and his eye, but that's about it. This is my favorite of the bunch. Nice low-key.

Thank you both for your well thought out responses, I really appreciate it. These are self portraits that I did with a self-timer, I had seen some similar shots a while back and wanted to try it out...and I was home alone! It was just a single bare speedlight, some shots I had a silver reflector on the opposite side, but I'm not even sure if any of the ones I posted used the reflector. Some of the shots were with the light right below chest level, and others had the light slightly above the head and pointing down. It was hard to place the light on myself nicely!

Thanks again and am open to any more critiques anyone has!

edit: I agree about the bright spots in the shadows. On all these pics I really upped the contrast and the clarity in LR4 so that really makes them stand out. I will clone them out!

Very well executed for self-portraits in my opinion.

To help with lighting, if you have a spare light stand or maybe even a brook stick, you can hold it up to where you'll be standing and adjust your light that way. It may not be spot on, but it'll probably give you a good idea and get you in the ballpark. Just an idea.

Not huge on the background honestly, a blank wall would have been more effective imo

gen2roller wrote in post #15301540
Not huge on the background honestly, a blank wall would have been more effective imo

I see your point, but I think #2 is pretty cool in how the background works with the dude. Those square shapes are a sort of cool constrast to the curvature of his figure, and I like how his fist is right inside that one prominent circle (though I think that would probably work a whole lot better if that hand was better lit).

I'm not disagreeing with you, I think you're probably "right". But as it stands now, I think that the background is interesting enough and does enough cool stuff that it could be a branching-off point for some photos that better utilize background geometry. I don't even know if how intentional that stuff was, but I think there's a good idea there even if that isn't quite working in these images.