A tasteful Lingerie Shoot.........!!!!!!!!!!!

[D-50]

I woudl suggest for your nexxt shoot to not have the model standing so stiff in front of a plain background. A lingere shoot typically is an environmental shoot, on a bed at the beach in some type of sensual setting. You are not selling lingere so looking at Victoria secret may not be the best guidance. You would be better off looking at Playboy.

 

[nagoshua]

I feel the pics need more passion. She doesnt look interested, maybe she just isnt amazingly photogenic. Try directing her more, think about different positions with her head, its the same in every picture. Maybe biting her lip, or a kinky little look from the side... i did a similar shoot with a friend who even though she was a very easy subject to work with gave me some looks of real passion, i just dont see it in this.

The poses you had her doing are not really very flattering either.

I think you should have gone for a much more low key look, she is too bright and i think seeing a bit more contrast and shadows would help accentuate her body. Also moving her away from the backdrop to would help to darken it a lot more... a black backdrop looks better if its wel and truly black.

Focusing is off in the full face portrait too.

 

[JerryPH]

There's been some hard and soft CC, and I will just offer my 2 cents.

- the pics all look a little soft to me.

- the nicest one is the last one, but the DOF is so shallow that the left eye is less sharp than the right one

- Most of the pics are marred by a black backdrop. There was one that had a flash into the backdrop, and that helped some... but it would have been better if you used it as a hair light instead. Changing the venue would be a better idea... a bed, comfy couch, beach... something other than plain jane black... even a prop of some kind would have helped.. a teddy bear, a box of chocolats in the shape of a heart?

- I find the lighting setup on most weak. Many are lightly underexposed

- Many would improve with more smart sharpening

- In the future, the catch light for the eyes should show one flash, not three.

- Don't be afraid to get more dynamic with your model... talk more, direct more and make them vary expression more from shot to shot. Bring out the passion of the shoot in them.

- When taking pics, be VERY wary of what some call "crotch shots". Her one pic smiling shows she has a wonderful smile, but the position she is sitting in would be better if cropped from mid-riff up.

- Speaking about cropping... the model doesn't ALWAYS have to be dead center. Variations of the rule of thirds help the composition now and then.

- did I mention props?

It is VERY easy for me, even as a beginner to CC someone else's work but not follow my own advice. But I do know that from personal experience, if I do not have the technical side down... if I cannot get the shots technically correct, no matter how beautiful or how interesting the subject, the shot will fail. I think that there were more technical issues that impeded your level of success than anything else, but that on top of it, you added a couple more challenges with a model that was a little stiff (at least she appeared that way in the pics).

You need to get your pics TACK sharp, get the DOF issues resolved and perfect the lighting a little more. Using different methods of lighting (Rembrant, open and closed loop and paramount lighting techniques for example), will give your pictures a more interesting look other than lighting from single planes for a whole session.

Having said all that, I think that you acheived some level of success, and certianly a LOT more than I would be able to in my first of such a shoot... but you do have lots of room for improvement.

To get more of the basics down, don't be afraid to gleam some good info and bend it to your needs from the Strobist site, this is a good place to get a lot of info from, even if all you have are studio lights.

I hope that I did not come off as harsh, and that whatever I said you realize and accept as coming from someone of limited experience.

I hope it helped.

Edit: I just had a newbie epiphany... lol. If I was a photographer in this position, certainly I would want lots of sponteniety, however I would also want to have many "poses" and "scenarios" ready in my head and/or written down on paper, ready to direct to the model. How many of these were pre-planned and how many were done on the fly? I think I would want about a 75% planned and 25% spontaneous setup, and a 100% spontaneous "look" to all the pics. I would have a goal of something like 100-150 pictures over the course of 2-2.5 hours including several lighting changes and backdrop changes. Of course if time were an issue, a 90 minute and 50-75 picture setup with 3 location/backdrop/lighting changes could be done just as easily.

I will mention that I have a lot of respect for you and anyone that does this. Doing this kind of thing is DEFINATELY not easy for an experienced 'Tog, much less for a beginner, and never without lots and lots and lots of practice.