Salon Portraits

So my wife somehow talked me into taking portraits of the staff of her favorite salon. They get to use them for their website, and in return she gets free haircuts. Funny how that works....

Anyway, the client requested that the portraits be unique to each person and have a different look, pose, background, etc. They also wanted them edited to look "grungy" or "edgy".

I shot with a 5d mk3 and a 70-200 2.8. Wife shot with the 6D and 135L. Sometimes we used natural light, other times just a single 580exII into an umbrella.

Basic adjustments made in Lightroom and then sent over to Photoshop for the "grunge" overlay and blotchy border. CC welcome!

The portraits are very nice. The "grungy" thing though is in direct conflict with the images. You have happy smiling attractive staff and you want to make them seem grungy with a semi-cheesy edge effect? Sorry, but it doesnt work. If the goal was grungy then the images should have some edge to them. Dont get me wrong though, the portraits are well executed, its the presentation and the theme that I have issue with.

Agree strongly with above...the edge on the frames just don't work on these otherwise good shots. I would try some other way of making them unique.

I agree with both of you, and I get what you're saying. Although the client specifically requested them this way. On my CD, I've also included the "clean edits" which I'm hoping she will see actually works better.

You said unique for each one, but they are all leaning left (Facing right, actually) and they all have the exact same grunge frame... just sayin'.

I don't like the "grunge" stuff at all, but I'm pretty sure the client(s) will like it, so I guess that's OK. The photo's look good to me, just the first one has a bit of an awkward smile. And in the 3rd one, I feel like the camera angle was a bit too low to be flattering. It also looks like the brown blob is hiding something.

Overall, they're good, I couldn't have done the portraits better myself. The fact that they're all tilted and from sort of the same angle gives the whole some unity.