Recent portraits

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. Over the last year or so, my photography has been on hiatus. I'm getting back in gear again and here is some of my work over the last week. Comments and criticisms welcomed and much appreciated.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/bluebomberx/644​624582/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/bluebomberx/644​417974/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/bluebomberx/644​417974/

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IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/bluebomberx/586​254478/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/bluebomberx/586​254496/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/bluebomberx/586​254516/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/bluebomberx/586​254540/

Nice shots. I like your lighting.

Not so sure about 7 but the rest all fine. I would be happy to send money to buy them from you.
With 7. The background and surrounding area not very special at all.
As ZekaG has commented the lighting is fine.

Just one more point. the cropping is not consistent in size, what size did you intend to print for them?

Very nice.

I like #7. It looks great.

The lighting is great looking and like khall I would be a happy customer.
7 does look like a quick enviro shot, nicely taken but not in league of the rest.

Thanks for the comments everyone. Five and six have already been cropped to 8x10 as posted. The rest are all full frame.

Ya know I do like them all except for #3 and #4.
To me #3 isn't pleasant to the eye becuz of the distortion, I dunno you might have gone for that effect, but I personally dont' care for it. Interesting color on the BG tho, what is it? I'm looking for some color choices on paper and I have a hard time deciding what color, that yellow is pretty nice.
Anyways #4, aside from the expression the lighting isn't nice and even like the rest of them. More shadows on her face than the other portraits indoors (1-3).
I personally like #7 myself, I like the hay field or whatever they're standing in, I think it would probably be more pleasing without the woods in the background or them being so dark...but I still like it. Very nice series.

Thank you, TSEE. I understand your reservations about the distortion on #3. It was meant to be a fun and goofy image for her - I shot 2 and 3 from a step ladder with a 17-40. The yellow background paper is Savage #13 - banana. The subject in the first three photos was lit with two lights. The fourth was lit with only one for the subject and a 48" white reflector - a shoe mount flash with a Stofen diffuser was placed on the floor in front of the background at 1/32 power. Number 4 was shot with a 28-105. Photos 7, and 8 were shot with an 85mm. Photos 1, 5, and 6 were shot with a 70-200. Number seven was the first shot in that location and I decided I needed a kicker light. I failed to crop a similar shot after I added the kicker. You can see the result of the kicker in the final photo.

Its all a matter of personal opinion, as long as the client liked it that's all that matters, right? They're the ones paying you for your work.
#12 banana, I'll keep that one in mind. I don't think just seeing a little square on the website really don't do the colors justice. I need to invest in some colors but hate to just invest in something blindly. The store I'm gonna get mine at has only a limited selection so I think the first time I got I'll get white, black and blue or something...then need to find some other nice colors to order at a later date.
The last image does look very nice with the kicker, too bad you see all the flyaways but then you can't control the elements can you.

I was real concerned after I order four rolls of seamless from B&H last week. After ordering the paper based on the swatches on B&H's website, I checked the Savage website. The banana almost looked like a beige color on their swatch PDF. Thankfully when it all arrived, B&H was right and Savage was wrong. Thought that was weird for the manufacturer to have some color issues on their web images. I ordered super black, super white, banana, and storm gray. The first photo was shot in front of the storm gray paper. Four 9' rolls of paper and and the Bogen Autopole background support resulted in $108 shipping charge :P

Ok so BH is truer colorwise than savage's own? That's not good. =o/ I'll keep that in mind, thanks! Yeah the shipping is a bit steep, I looked at Adorama and shipping PER roll was gonna run me 60 bucks, I did find a place 4 hours from here that sells them and buying 3 rolls of paper and driving there to pick them up will be cheaper than ordering so that's what I'll do but like I said they had limited colors so I'll go with the white (artic white I think it was?) , black and I like blue so a blue color, I might get a pink if they have it just becuz I do a lot of girl portraits (my own daugther and niece's). But I need to go out of my comfort zone, I'm kind of conservative with colors - I saw a yellow one the other day that looked amazing in the shots...just have no idea what color # it was.

Thanks for the help!

I like the back/rim lighting on the last. Some weird closeup / wide angle distortions going on in #3. Some nice shots overall...

Interesting distortions on some of those shots. I like the ones on the bottom the best.

i really like shots 5 to 8 especially 5 with the contrast of them in the foreground to the background in the shot.
i'm not so sure on the backlighting on the last shot..... seems a bit 'out' when you look at the other three shots of the couple.
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