Some Recent senior pictures

[Cely]

Hey everyone, I recently started taking senior pictures for people in my nearby area. I just wanted to show some of my work. Right now I am only charging people 75 dollars per shoot, and I take the pictures that I think are good and put them on a disk for them, and they can take them wherever they want to be printed. However I give them a coupon to my mothers professional photolab, so most of them get it done there.

Any criticism is welcome.

 

[musicaleCA]

Heh, well I'd be a little more picky about where they go to get prints, but that's just me. (I mean, if you do your job right, it should print nicely on Charmin, but still...) At least your current pricing fits the market. High school seniors don't exactly have tons of cash to spend.

I think the first and fourth are pretty pleasing. They're both relatively clean and nicely lit. In the first her hair is very controlled, and in the fourth his head is framed a little by the background.

I feel the second needs airbrushing on the camera right cheek, and a brush. Hair frizzies are such a hassle. >.< There's also a noticeable difference in brightness between her left and right eyes; some fill light from camera right would help matters, and judicious post processing to bring up the exposure of the darker eye to even things out a little.

The third and fifth look a little OOF. I don't feel that the focus was nailed to get the eyes tack sharp. :-/

Pay close, close attention to skin tones; use a Munsell colour card if you can when changing lighting conditions. In the first you have this gorgeous warm light warming up her skin tones, and they look wonderful. The second looks very cold. A gold reflector would warm things up, and a colour check card would let you nail it in post easily. Similar for the last one; seems the skin tones have gone a bit green. This might be from a colour cast from the yellow shirt, but could probably be easily fixed by adding some magenta tint to the image. (I think the fourth image is a bit cold too in the skin tones. To me, the third image looks like the most accurate reproduction of his natural skin colour.)

 

[Cely]

Thanks for the critique!

It really helps, some of those things you said about post processing I wouldn't have even thought of.

 

[musicaleCA]

No worries. Glad I could help.

 

[Josh220]

A few of them seem a little out of focus/noisy. I also noticed that the skin tones vary on the males photo's. In one he is orange, then the next the lighting makes him pale.

Good poses though. I really like #1 but maybe you could desaturate the orange on her neck?

 

[Cely]

Alright, after seeing the advice in this thread I decided to retouch the images, tell me what you think.

 

[CygnusStudios]

One thing to really consider going forward is the choice of printing. Ultimately you are the one that gets the credit or blame, even if you have nothing to do with it. Do you really want your reputation to rely on whatever one eyed, color blind kid working at the photo center of the local box store?

I carry with me prints made by Walmart, Target, Costco, the local camera shops and my pro lab. I show the clients the difference during the initial consultation. None have chosen the local options after seeing the difference first hand.

Keep in mind that not only will your clients be seeing the prints, but everyone they know. The original client will see the image and remember how nice it was in their mind. The others will see the print quality.

 

[NateS]

Most of those do seem soft, so I gave it a second glance. It's not soft, it's just mis-focused. Focus on all the ones of the guy appears to be on his jeans instead of on his face. This results (at f1.8) in the image appearing soft and out of focus on his face (where it matters most). If shooting at f1.8 all the time, which you seem to be doing, make sure and nail the focus on the eyes.

First one I really like, the others not so much.

 

[Cely]

Hmm, I always focused on my subjects eyes so it seems odd to me the focus is off. Im not disagreeing with you it just seems weird. Yeah I probably should be aiming for a smaller aperture. Ill make sure I do some more and post them up.

Thank you everyone again for the comments, I'll get there eventually!

 

[Derrel]

I think you need to re-evaluate your choice of framing on the boy's photographs, where you are seriously cutting into his body; the last photo of him has what is called a "double amputation", where both his left and right hands are simply chopped off. In the photo of him wearing the white and blue shirt, the left hand side of the frame has much more negative space than the right side has, making for an off-balance composition; the same mistake is repeated in the shot with him in the yellow shirt posed in front of the lumber.

I would definitely not shoot half-body shots at f/1.8, but go for a smaller aperture. I can see substantial portions of his body out of focus,which is disturbing.