Early attempts at home studio portraits - C&C please?

[iolair]

1.

2.

On the first one, I red-filtered - should have compensated with dark lipstick I guess, because as a result the lips came out too pale. Other than that, I'm pretty pleased.

 

[rufus5150]

Long sleeves would have helped the first one as well as a higher neckline. A darker shirt would also help bring focus to the lighter parts of the image, namely the face. There are some unflattering shadows caused by the hair light over the subject's right eye. The BW conversion -- the background looks like it really accepted the treatment well, but the processing did not compliment the fleshtones very well. Coupled with the light colored shirt, the portrait lacks a central place for the eye to travel.

In the second one, being turned at such an extreme angle narrows the neck which gives an odd proportion between the head and the shoulders. The 45-degree convention in portraiture might have been employed here to avoid that. The hair light is nice, what you need in this instance is a kicker to add some background separation for your subject.

 

[iolair]

Thanks! I take your point on darker clothing and long sleeves to avoid distracting from the face.... will try that.

The second one - I'm still not clear what a "kicker" is?

 

[tirediron]

Thanks! I take your point on darker clothing and long sleeves to avoid distracting from the face.... will try that.

The second one - I'm still not clear what a "kicker" is?

A small strobe (or one with reduced output) aimed just at the background which will "separate" the subject from the background slightly.

 

[rufus5150]

I've always used the term 'kicker' to mean a light on the back of the subject... rim light maybe a better term?, not the background, but in any event some way to separate the subject from the background would help #2, I think.

 

[gopal]

i use my spotlight as kicker..getting rim lighting on hairs and the portion visible to that light...