Bkack and Wite Portrait

Critique please

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Notice the difference in body motion.

The posing is to parallel and perpendicular too the print edges. Parallel and perpendicular = boring = not selling as good.

Photography is presented in two deminsions (Length and width). Diagonal lines created movement, flow and help add the third demension, depth.

One could argue in my image that the front shoulder could be turned more AND the head turned away from the camera a tad more for more flurtation.

Hope that helps ...

PS Brides, same thing. If the subject feels normal, it will look boring. If they complain how they feel, not boring. Prove it to yourself. Put yourself in this pose. Put your wife or girlfriend in the pose and see what they say. If clients say anything, and they will, just tell them that is why they will love the image.

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Llaamaboy
Hey good point. Thanks Ill try that next opportunity

Chris

Dear Chris,

Notice that her face is not showing the depth and facial structure that you know should be there. The reason is the lighting is very flat or frontal (on axis with the camera). In order to get the shadows that create a 3-dimensional image there must be cross lighting involved. It does not have to be the only light, but it should be in balance with the frontal lighting. I prefer the cross-lighting to be such that it causes diagonal shadows from northeast to southwest or from northwest to southeast.

If you have not already done so, you might take a quick look at this tutorial:
http://www.zaffora.com​/W9DMK/PortraitLightin​g.htm
or the downloadable PDF version at:
http://www.zaffora.com​/W9DMK/PortraitLightin​g.pdf

This is the original colour. Think I lost the shadows in the B and W conversion

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In this original color image, the only shadow at all is under her chin along the back edge - very small shadow there. The shadows that I would expect to find for the nose and in the eye sockets just aren't there. So, I can only conclude that the lighting is predominantly flat or extremely diffuse. The fact that I see a strong catchlight almost dead center in the eye tells the whole story of the lighting. The shadows just weren't there to begin with.

Bob,

I have a room with white walls. I tried your lighting advice but cant get the fill in light far enough away. check the catch light I removed in PS.

I think its my old strobes with full or half poweer nothing else.

If I am understanding this ...
Try taking down the fill light all together (since you are in a white room). Move the main light 45 degrees off of camera and lets see how deep your shadows are.

If the shadows are too deep, then lets point the fill to the white wall on the shadow side. Try that and see what happens?

Lighting set up?

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