good composition?

[goodoneian]

took this a while ago but just stumbled across it again and thought it looked pretty good. i've always struggled composing pictures but i think this ones decent. any suggestions or comments?

 

[Michael Touchette]

looks good to me, except for the tree sticking out of her head

 

[prodigy2k7]

Honestly, its a very nice picture

 

[Bigpopa]

Very nice pic but that tree is a little distracting......

 

[bdavis]

Agreed...good picture, but the tree doesnt look good coming out of her head.

Out of curiosity, what gear did you use?

 

[andrew99]

Cool shot, I like the wide angle effect. Besides the tree, the only thing I would have done differently is point the camera slightly lower so that her shoe isn't so close to the edge of the frame, but really it's no big deal.

Is that natural lighting? I like how her face is lit.

 

[Derek Zoolander]

Did you use flash?

 

[Breanna]

I like it

 

[goodoneian]

ah, i didn't even notice the tree really until you guys mentioned it. i could probably clone it out though.

gear wise it was taken with a d300 and sigma 17-70mm. lighting was an sb600 shot through an umbrella camera right at like, 1/2 power if i can recall. so yes, i did use flash.

and thank you for the comments

 

[tirediron]

I would have liked to see the image shot with a reflector image left to reduce the depth of the shadows on the right side of her face, and a much shallower DoF; the background, even though soft, is still, IMO, very distracting.

 

[goodoneian]

hmm i never really though about using a reflector.

i know what you mean about the background being distracting, i guess that's what happens when you use a 17mm lens

i tried blurring it some in photoshop but i can't seem to get down a method that looks realistic

 

[tirediron]

When you're shooting that wide, your DoF is extreme, even at close ranges; your best bet will be to go with a long lens and move farther back. Besides the oft-mentioned tree, the path image right is a serious distractor as it grabs the eye at about the half-way point on the subject and leads it right out of the image.

I would suggest trying to re-shoot the image, and orient the model so that the background is a little more homogenous, that is, just grass and trees vice, the path, water, and picnic area. Go with long glass, and shoot wide (or nearly so) open. I think you will see a whole different, and possibly more pleasing image.

 

[goodoneian]

yeah, i kinda wanna re shoot it. i'm taking pictures for her again sometime next week again, so i'll probably use my 50mm 1.8 and experiment with that.

unfortunately there's no tall grass where i live, i've always wanted to do something in it though. there is a lot of grape vines though and once their in bloom i plan on doing some shoots at a winery near my house

 

[Early]

I'm not big on using wide angle lenses on portraits, but I rate this as much better than okay, and the background doesn't bother me at all. It's kinda like a photo within a photo.