Studio Practice 2

Some more attempts at studio portraits. C&C Welcome.

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

I try to never have the subjects shoulder turned into the lens like 2 and 3. It's called football shoulder.
I also have them shift their shoulders 45 degrees to the camera.

I think #1 looks good, but she should be turned further into or away and in closer to him. The gap between the heads makes the image look uncomfortable.
They're leaning in too much and it gives off a feeling like they don't want to be close to each other.

The lighting looks good and you have catch lights in both eyes on every subject. It's a good start, so just keep working, learning and posting.
Grab a glamor rag or something like that and look how the images are posed. Portrait work has a basic set of rules and you should learn those first.

You should update your meta date for the year 2011 in your camera. A CWB is a good idea or at least use a card to correct WB in PP.
I see you're using a 35mm focal length. You should try the 70-200 for studio portrait work and see how well it works.

I would also turn off the D lighting control and use an ISO of 100 for all studio work.

drdiesel1 gave you some great feedback, and I agree with it completely, so won't reiterate. The third shot is a great example of why you need to manage the clothing of your subject to get the best image possible. You need to try your best to get your subjects to wear LONG sleeves, for a variety of reasons.

The main reason is that when skin is showing like the girl's arm in shot 3, you have two areas of light, white skin that are competing for attention. You do NOT want that. You want the viewer's eyes to go to the face and not be drawn away by the second competing white element, the arm skin. The pretty lady in the second shot, got it right. Notice how your eyes stay on her and the baby? This "rule" (which was meant to be broken situationally) is the same for women or men wearing shorts. Just say no.

The second reason, especially for women, is that the skin tones in bare arm skin and a face with make up (or a sun tan for men) is completely different. Look at her arms and compare it to her face. night and day. Long sleeves would change everything in that regard.

A third reason to urge women to wear long sleeves is that 95% of women, fat or thin, hate their arms in photos. Good posing techniques can slim arms down, so can photoshop and lighting, but many women will whine about their arms in photos and they should have worn long sleeves anyway, for other reasons also.

Keep shooting, you are off to terrific start.

Thanks for the input drdiesel1. I will take all this advice in for my next attempt (maybe this weekend). I knew this type of work wouldn't be easy, but I'm having fun while learning this stuff.

Thanks for the advice on clothing suecassidy. I will keep that in mind during pre-session meetings with clients. These are just test shots so we didn't even get into what to wear. The pretty lady in the second shot is my Wife with our baby girl, btw

When I get time I'll process some other shots from this test session.

Keep the advice coming I appreciate any help with improving my photography.