First time Portraits

[Jane948]

I finally tried to take photos of people, which I've been nervous to do. I automatically thought of my family, they are they only ones who would probably let me post it on line LOL I know I'm not a pro but I'm really happy I tried it and I will continue to learn about Portrait Photography.

if anyone is wondering thats my Dad (Mike), Mom (Olga) and Vlad

*is nervous* but please comment, I would love some feedback

 

[mysteryscribe]

If it had been me I would have shot them vertical by turning ther camera it would have made the crop better. But they are well done otherwise.

 

[glaston]

I agree with what mysteryscribe says about the vertical shots.
I also think they're pretty good.

The only real critique I have is that the backgrounds are very close to the colors of the subjects clothing.
It seems to effect the contrast of the whole image and prevent the subjects from standing out the way you'd expect in a portrait.
IMO, they need backlighting to highlight the silhouettes.
Shooting at an earlier time of day would probably help.

You could also mask the subjects, then select the backgrounds, copy to a new layer and set the blending mode to luminance and play with the opacity.
Or create a couple adjustment layers to bump up the brightness and/or the hue and saturation of the background.

The last image could do with some adjustments to the teeth. The highlights of the teeth are a bit intense and it really catches the eye and detracts from the shot as a whole.

For first portrait attempts these are very good. Keep going!

 

[sayambhu]

my dear friend,

if you want to pursue shooting people in portraits, you have to keep something in mind - stop using flash.

flash destroys the natural photograph. look what happened to the skin tones here...

1. try shooting people under the sun & natural light.

2. make sure the texture and elements in the background complement the subject.

3. center the most important aspect of the subject (eyes here for instance), 1/3rd distance below from the top of the frame [have a look at number 6 here : http://www.turboshots.net/gallery/en/timeoutofmind/timeoutofmind_g_en.html]

you'll get marvellous results.

keep shooting - you're on the right way !

 

[mwct]

Thats the direct opposite advice from the "make sure you use fill flash to get out the facial features from the shadow" advice you'll hear everyone else give...

 

[sayambhu]

Thats the direct opposite advice from the "make sure you use fill flash to get out the facial features from the shadow" advice you'll hear everyone else give...

I respect someone else's such an advice, but atleast we at out society are instructed as I wrote...

(Flash and reflectors can definitely be used for portraits provided you bounce the flash light off walls or have a diffuser, that too, in low light conditions. If you had a lady under golden setting sun rays on her face, do you think a white fill-in flash would do it any better ?)