Alex!

SnappingShark · Jul 29, 2016

Finally got to shoot some portraits recently and I was semi-happy with the results. For me, I'm happy if one photo makes it out of the shoot - and here's that one for me.

Any comments, critiques or feedback are greatly welcomed.

Watermark was added as I have it online for preview purposes only!

pixmedic · Jul 30, 2016

im honestly torn on the horizontal aspect + shallow DOF.
I think her right cheek being OOF bothers me more than the rest. (personal preference keeps me from really loving portraits where parts of the face are OOF)
for the most part, I like the shot as its framed....posed well, shot from a good angle, love the expression...
color is good, WB is good, exposure is good. looks like lighting conditions weren't ideal, but you worked around that really well.
so much to love about this...but soooooo much OOF, its almost hard on the eyes.

overall, and personal preferences included in this opinion, I think this is a keeper.
I personally would have liked it better with just enough DOF for her whole face to be in focus.

SquarePeg · Jul 30, 2016

Overall, I love it. The tilt is a bit disorienting and I find myself tilting my head to the right and then bam! Her eyes really retain the attention so the dof is not much of an issue for me. Pixmedic is right, you really made the challenging lighting work for you. There is a slightly distracting light spot on her left arm that you may want to tone down but this is a great portrait. Unique and interesting.

tirediron · Jul 30, 2016

First and foremost, I love this young lady's look and I would love to shoot with her. Great model! As far as the image goes, I'm sorry, but I'm in the 'mehhh' camp on this. I'm not a fand of the angle, not even a little bit, nor of the mottled light, and the cropped left shoulder and hands bother me too.

I think if you'd come a little more camera left and shot from a little less 'down' you would have had a killer shot. As-is, it's nice, but...

SnappingShark · Jul 30, 2016

Yeah, I knew the oof area would annoy some people, but I was shooting at like f1.2 or 1.8 I think on this shot - maybe I should have gone to 2.2 or something.

The lighting was kinda tough, her little brother was there holding my reflector and I was having to get him bounce light from out in the street into the steps we were at. Not ideal but.. I think for a 10 year old kid he did good!

I do like how opinion is kinda split on this image though. Always good to have some positives and some negatives to learn from and I really value the feedback! I'm hoping to get better as time goes on - portrait stuff is so much different to street photography haha - hopefully I'll be able to pull my street style into my shoots more.