Portrait C&C

Broke out the new camera wondering what everyone thinks

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Hey, Alan. Pretty girl you found there. Nice job using natural light. There are a few things going on that you'll want to look for next time.

Her glasses are positioned so that they bisect her left eye. You need to watch for that, especially when someone's wearing those smaller glasses. It's hard to get them so that they're either down far enough to show the eyes completely, or far enough up on her nose to cover the eyes.

Her outfit isn't the most flattering. There's too much bare skin, and that draws the eye away from her pretty face. An outfit with sleeves, or a sweater worn over this dress, would have helped.

It's usually best not to turn her head so far away from the camera that her pupils slam up against the side of her eye socket. You want to leave a little white there.

The background is too bright. Not a lot you could do about that with only natural light. A reflector would have helped, but OCF is the best solution. Underexpose your background by about a stop, then adjust your flash to light your subject properly.

You cropped off the end of her foot. Usually you want to either have all of her in the shot, or crop at mid-joint, so that it doesn't look like an accident.

Overall a good effort. Just a few small problems that are easily fixed.

Wow, small details I would've never noticed. Thank you for bringing them to light and I will absolutely utilize my reflector next time..

I wasn't crazy about her outfit to begin with, but this is what she showed up with and it was a spur of the moment thing for me to take some shots of her.. I totally see what you're saying though.

I will be practicing the technique of underexposing the ambient exposure by upping the shutter speed and then playing with my ocf. Something I haven't had a lot of time or a chance to do it. This would've probably helped bring any blue back into the sky that was there had I underexposed the background..

imbillkamal wrote in post #15602428
Wow, small details I would've never noticed. Thank you for bringing them to light and I will absolutely utilize my reflector next time..

I wasn't crazy about her outfit to begin with, but this is what she showed up with and it was a spur of the moment thing for me to take some shots of her.. I totally see what you're saying though.

I will be practicing the technique of underexposing the ambient exposure by upping the shutter speed and then playing with my ocf. Something I haven't had a lot of time or a chance to do it. This would've probably helped bring any blue back into the sky that was there had I underexposed the background..

You're welcome. I know sometimes you can't do anything about what a client shows up wearing. My niece was one of the free shoots I did a couple of years ago, and I told her not to wear anything bright or loud. No patterns, either. What does she show up in? A black and white animal print top with the brightest pink pants you've ever seen. They were so bright, I thought they had their own light source. What can you do except shoot?

I'm taking notes, suggest no patterns or bright/loud colors optional sweater or long sleeve top. Got it.

I'll keep it burned into my brain about the glasses, now that I notice it, it is very annoying and had they been laying low enough on her nose to see her whole eyes it would have given the image a different look as well.

I'd second gibbit's comments esp. regarding the position of her glasses. Additionally, it might just be my personal impression but for me due to the different heights of the shore line to the left and to the right of the woman, the picture seems to be slightly tilted to the right.

All of Gibbit's comments are good. I would also like to add that you gotta pay attention to the background. Here, you got those three vertical lines (phone poles?), two of which are going through her head. A little re-positioning may have avoided this.

Those are palm trees.

imbillkamal wrote in post #15603104
Those are palm trees.

Oh snap! Haha. They look so straight