C&C - Nazmi Indoors

[Derrel]

Yes that was a typo, and I meant to just say side. I am doing this by voice to text, and I have an iPhone SE, which has a teeny tiny screen. Regarding the back of the hand and the veins/some people have veins that are clearly visible on their hands, and one secret is to have the person raise their hands above their head for 10 or 15 seconds and then to lower their hands right before making the shot.

 

[ElNico]

To get rid of that slightly large appearing hand, the easiest quickest way would be to either remove the hand from the post, which would in effect, and in actuality, render her head a little bit larger than it would look with a normal lens.

The hand was part of the premise of the pose. I think that using a longer lens (in my case, shooting further back with greater zoom) is what I needed to do here.

Thanks for the tip about raising the hands above the head.

I am doing this by voice to text

Ah, that explains a lot.​

 

[Derrel]

In traditional formal portraiture the back of the hand is considered inelegant, and in most traditional female poses the pinky finger side of the hand is what is shown, and seldom the back or flat of the hand, which in this case shows the veins to a degree that would not be seen if she were perhaps fatter, or had a different vein structure.

Speaking of fatter I recently lost about 35 pounds, and the veins on the back of my hands are now much more clearly visible than they were when I was heavier.

On some people who are really thin or really fit, their veins are clearly visible.

 

[Derrel]

The idea of filling in, mentally, it's very real. For example in many of what are called "hand poses", it is considered to be a best practice to show at least part of it all five fingers, and not to hide the pinky finger or thumb. Why? Because the longer a person looks at a picture, the more one starts to see the very small details that give a sense of visual completeness to the person.

When we are in the presence of a person, often times their personality or the stress of the shooting situation causes us to mentally not see everything, but when we see the final pictures we are confronted with every single error,omission, or shortcoming. This is where the term incomplete pose versus complete pose originated from. For example let's say I do a hand pose with the woman's hand positioned under her chin. Many people will do this pose incorrectly, and will have her rest the entire weight of her head on a fist, with the back of her hand facing the camera lens, when in reality the way to do it has been decided upon decades ago, it is a very feminine and dainty positioning of the hand with all five fingers visible to the lens,and which has been covered in many photographic instruction manuals, most of which are 50 or 60 years old now.

A lot of people look at old photos and laugh at the clothes or hairstyles, but if you look at old photographs of beauty queens or actors and actresses photographed in the 40s and 50s,they often look amazingly fit and trim, and attractive, because the majority of people who made the photographs back then were following sound posing fundamentals, and guidelines that have been worked out over literally millennia. Look at David--the statue David. He is posed expertly ! I have seen pictures of Marilyn Monroe and Scarlett Johansson, and both look great, because they were photographed by people who knew how to pose, and light, and how to use the camera well.

I have spent the last hour of my evening dictating to my phone a few of what I consider to be the real secrets to photographing people, to make them look good. I think that if you search out the right instructional material that your journey Will be easy, and productive and will stand you in good stead for the rest of your life. You will advance quickly once you learn a few fundamentals, none of which you are likely to find in instructional materials that were produced during the digital era.

If you wish to watch YouTube videos, I recommend the Adorama TV series hosted by Mark Wallace, and the very good videos that B& H Photo has on their site, and the excellent studio lighting tutorials that Dean Collins did back in the 1990s, and the excellent lighting and studio photography videos that one can find on the Sekonic website.

 

[texxter]

Thanks for sharing your work and requesting feedback. My comments are not specific to lighting or posing, since those areas have been discussed above. I will talk about technical elements first, and then opinions second.

Technically, my feedback is to pay attention to compositional details. On image #1 the elbow is cropped off, #2 her feet are cut off, and they shouldn't be, on #4, #5 and #6 her messy hair make the photos loop less polished then they could be. Cropping of both arms on #6 is not great. Elements in the background seem randomly, as on #4 with the corner of the couch and cabinet behind her.

On the opinion side, she is dressed in a sexy manner and her pose attempts to be sensual - however, the setting is not sexy or sensual - it's an apartment with furniture, pillows, windows and stuff. This clash between a model in a cocktail dress in an apartment living room reduces the intended sensuality of the photos - it makes them look like she's posing for a photo shoot in a small place with messy hair. So what to do? Either take normal portrait of her in her space, emphasizing her pretty eyes and beautiful smile, but skipping the cleavage and cocktail dress -- or, go for sexy and make sure she has well styled hair, the setting is appropriate and the poses are sensual - look up "boudoir" to get ideas. Again, this is just an opinion you may agree or disagree with, so take it for what is worth.

 

[ElNico]

Thanks for the feedback!

Noticing when a model's hair needs to be re-fixed after being done up and then messed is probably a whole new skill I need to learn.

For the setting, I agree with respect to #2, but for the others I thought I'd managed to cut out the unnecessary stuff, except for the corner of the couch in #4. For #1, is her lying on the couch not appropriate for the dress? I thought a couch was an appropriate setting for, as you say, a "boudoir" shoot. Maybe not with the third dress - that one's less sensual and more flashy - but for the first one and to a lesser extent the second. For 3, 5 and 6, I was deliberately using the bare door/wall as a plain white backdrop, plus using the doorframe for her to lean against in #3.

For #4, I agree about the couch, but what's wrong with the cabinet? She's leaning against it, and that's part of the pose. I understand not wanting to give away that this is a lived-in space rather than a studio; but to create this kind of pose, I still need a thing for her to lean against. And the part of the cabinet you can see is pretty uniform, making it look (at least to me) as a rather innocuous object; it's not like you can see a lot of busy handles and drawers on it. How do you think it could be less obtrusive?

As for shooting in her apartment to begin with, it was basically making due with what was available. Again, I tried to find parts of it which looked more appropriate for the outfits, like shooting on the couch and against the large plain white door. There were also some shots on the balcony that I didn't include (I think that the poses worked with the setting in theory, but the lighting didn't come out so well).

 

[texxter]

Please understand I am sharing an opinion and not a truth. There is nothing wrong with having your model lean on a cabinet, or having a cabinet to lean on. It's really all subjective and others will think that the model and the pictures are gorgeous. What I am pointing out is, from my personal perspective, that the intent seems to be to convey sensuality via the dress, pose and expression, and the setting seems to contribute little to that. It's not wrong, just less than what it could be from my personal point of view. And I totally understand not having a choice over the location. I remember once when I had to shoot a Hollywood style photo for a portraiture class and got kicked out of the school studio because they were closing and I had to shoot in the hallway. There were only doors, windows and fluorescent light in a college hallway. I decided to throw a dark piece of fabric behind the model and not use the environment at all, as it wasn't going to add anything and would have probably taken away from the portrait. That was my choice confronted with a limiting environment - I didn't use it. The portrait is here.