Second attempt at Portraitature

This time, I was over my Friend Sandra's place for Easter diner and she insisted I take her picture so we selected the stairway as a decent spot as this had overhead light, diffused by a frosted glass shade. I had her sit midway on the stairs and me, about 5 steps higher, crouched down to be not to high above her.

A bit of cropping and digital facial cosmetics were applied, at her request, to remove a few "character" lines.

This was shot with my EF50mm f/1.4 wide open, ISO 500

C&C appreciated.

Cheers!

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This is a good shot that would have been exceptional without whatever that is in the foreground.

...just my 2¢

ayotnoms wrote in post #5172776
This is a good shot that would have been exceptional without whatever that is in the foreground.

...just my 2¢

Thanks!

That shaggy thing is Winston, her poodle, who follows her everywhere!

Cheers!

Had the dog night been in the shoot .... good looking out for light, really nice.

crop up to her shoulder, crop into vertical format, and put the dog in the back yard. good lighting and color and DOF

elader wrote in post #5173520
crop up to her shoulder, crop into vertical format, and put the dog in the back yard. good lighting and color and DOF

Thanks for the feedback.

There really wasn't enough room from the original shot to do a proper vertical crop in the way you suggested but cropping from her shoulder up is a great idea! Thank you!

Perhaps a landscape crop of that idea might work?

Cheers!



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yup, thats better.

that woolly thing - it looks like someone's head

poodle should either be part of the shot, or off-camera properly, cos i keep looking at it trying to work out what it is

elader wrote in post #5178133
yup, thats better.

Thanks for your help.

It's weird. When I cropped the shot originally, I never even thought about the dog being in her lap because I couldn't put myself into the third person to see what a distraction it was because I knew it was her dog. That's why asking for and receiving feedback from fresh sets of eyes is vital.

Thanks again.

Cheers!

Regards removing wrinkles, I'd have done this on a separate layer and then reduced the opacity very slightly so you can see the texture of the skin and a slight hint of the wrinkles.

Generally looks more natural.

EOS_JD wrote in post #5183818
Regards removing wrinkles, I'd have done this on a separate layer and then reduced the opacity very slightly so you can see the texture of the skin and a slight hint of the wrinkles.

Generally looks more natural.

That's a great tip!

I'll give that a shot and see what I can come up with!

I tried the more pedestrian fixes such as despeckle and air brush directly on the one layer. I don't have Photoshop, just a couple of Microsoft apps; Photodraw2000 and Digital Image Suite 2006 Editor version. Both allow work with layers though so I should be able to try out that idea.

Thanks and cheers!