And now for the rest of Caroline.

12sndsgood · Apr 22, 2012

So some of you saw my cropping post of Caroline a week or so ago. this is just a few more from her set. I was pretty happy with the results. I feel they were another small step forward in quality over my last shoot and I also learned some new things to watch out for, so for me it was a sucsess. I found Caroline on ModelMayhem so that was also new for me. She was great to work with, New how to pose (well at least better then anyone I had worked with before) so much so that while out on the lake I overheated my SB-900 because I kinda forgot how fast I was shooting with her from not having to tell her how to pose for me.

The origonal premise was to start off with her being innocent and slowly thruout the day going from innocent good girl to out of hand punk look. I think we really only got to the halfway point in the transformation and hopefully one day I will have her back out to finish the set. But enough rambling, on to the pics. And as always and the one reason I love this place, be as brutally honest as possibly in your critiques.

1.)

Caroline 0011s by Square1 photography, on Flickr

2.)
this was something new for me. kinda blowing out the right side with the sun a bit.

Caroline 0006s by Square1 photography, on Flickr

3.)

Caroline 0013s by Square1 photography, on Flickr

4.)

Caroline 0017s by Square1 photography, on Flickr

5.)

Caroline 0024s by Square1 photography, on Flickr

Sorry for so many pics. I just tried to go a little more outside the box then I have been going. I was told my lighting was somewhat boring so I really tried to get more dramatic then in previous attempts. I was also working on improving my PP skills. learning how to smooth skin and clean up the eyes and darken the lips on some of these. So I likely may have went a bit overboard on the processing. I tend to do that when I learn a new skill. go overboard and then slowly try to reign it back in. enjoy.

Big Mike · Apr 23, 2012

Very good stuff going on here, well done.

Off the top of my head, areas that I see for improvement;
On #2, her face is quite dark...some fill light is needed for that shot.

In the studio shots, the last two in particular, the light light source is just slightly below her. Were you perhaps shooting in a location with a low ceiling? I'm looking at the shadow of her nose, and it's going in an upward direction. That type of lighting does have it's place, but I don't think that this is it. Move your light source higher.

12sndsgood · Apr 23, 2012

Thanks Mike. I wasn't super happy with the first batch outside. sun wasn't were I wanted and to be honest I was a bit afraid to put any lightsource with an umbrella on the dock. wind wasn't blowing hard but I just kep thinking that if i do it the wind is going to blow and i'll be fishing my flash out of the water. i hope to go back and either get better light, or take someone with me to help secure the flash. or in this instance I should have just thrown the flash on the camera and kept it low. or even now that im sitting here thinking, I could have thrown the flash on the stand and held it with one hand as I shot with the other. Course knowing me I probalby would have knocked the light in the water myself or gotten poor shots from trying to shoot one handed.

for the last studio shots I know they were later in the session. I have 9' ceilings in the living room and have a 30x60 softbox. usually about as high as it will go. Only thing I can think of is maybe when I lowered it down for a few shots it didn't get raised back up enough perhaps. Now I believe for those i had a flash with umbrellas on her right side using to light her hair, maybe I had that pulled over a bit to much and that was causing the low shadows as well. I was fighting space a bit for hair lights on one side I had the ceiling fan in the way ( I was using umbrellas which I think was the wrong way to go. I think I should have had something more direct a snoot of some sort to get the direction I wanted with the light and avoiding spilloff which I noticed on the background in a few shots.)

looking at the shot on 4 the light on her neck seems to be going down. so I'm wondering if the two light scources could have been fighting a bit for that one?

DiskoJoe · Apr 23, 2012

i like all of them but #2.

#2 - her facial expression seems a bit off. The pose of her body is good but she has this half smile confused kind of look going on. Not sure what to make of it. Also the head positioning puts a lot of shadow on her face where a simple turn could have cast golden sunlight on her face.

Big Mike · Apr 23, 2012

or in this instance I should have just thrown the flash on the camera and kept it low.

Yes. It's fill light, being off camera isn't necessary...actually, it's likely to be a hindrance because it might cast it's own shadows. You typically only want shadows being cast by the main light, so having the fill light on-axis is best (that is, at least, the old-school way). Although, in this case, a reflector on her off side would have worked wonders....but for a reflector, you need a VAL (voice activated light stand) which you obviously didn't have.

looking at the shot on 4 the light on her neck seems to be going down. so I'm wondering if the two light scources could have been fighting a bit for that one?

Maybe. Could be that your main light large enough to give both above and below lighting...but either way, the lighting on her face looks weird/wrong because that nose shadow is going up and there looks to be some light on her cheek that is sneaking in from under her nose. If that light was higher, all else being the same, you would have seen an inverted triangle on her cheek, which we would call Rembrandt lighting.

12sndsgood · Apr 23, 2012

Defiunatly will try that out next time i'm in that situation. and yeah VAL are hard for me to come by lately lol.

So in your opinon does that shadowing on her face kill the picture?

12sndsgood · Apr 24, 2012

I missed your post joe. Yeah I think for number 2 i kept it merely for the overexposed aspect to it. I have seen that type of pic and so I tried to work with it to see what i could come up with. problaby was paying more attention to the light on it then her facial expression. Think i got her from going to a serious face to a smile and i got her right in the middle lol.

12sndsgood · Apr 25, 2012

One shameless bump before I let this one go.

Derrel · Apr 25, 2012

She has lovely features...a real "natural beauty" type woman. Well worth photographing her again!

slackercruster · Apr 25, 2012

Beautiful girl! Nice work.

Tell her to take the ring out of her nose. No need to deface her beauty and look like a barnyard animal.

12sndsgood · Apr 26, 2012

To each there own I guess on the nose ring. I think it works well with the green streak in her hair.

camerateur · Apr 26, 2012

12sndsgood said:
To each there own I guess on the nose ring. I think it works well with the green streak in her hair.

i don't think anything is wrong with the piercing, but if you wanted to go from good girl to bad, then maybe (i guess another time unless you want to PS it out) you could try only shots without the piercing (left side of her face or have her take it out for a bit and you can PS out the hole) and then show the piercing later on in the "bad girl shots"

i agree with you about it going with the green streak, but maybe try to get the streak out more, or greener. ( i nearly missed that it was there at all, but that could just be my quick look at your shots)
pretty shots btw!! my favs are the first and fourth one, composition wise i feel they work the best.

oh and in the last one, i'd love to have seen her not slouch as much. and without the tiny hairs on her neck, they looked like wrinkles at first glance. you either want more hair there or none at all

12sndsgood · Apr 27, 2012

When I started out I did work both sides of her face so I could hide the nose rink and the streak, I actually thought about having her take it out at first. but it was a bit *****, not sure if she had something going on with it so I didnt ask. Even went in and P.P. the areas where it was really visable to smooth the skin out in a few shots. Since I felt we were only half way done with the transformation I really didnt' intend to post these pics laid out like that, These were a few that i liked or wanted to see how other people thought of them. If I get a chance to finish this set with her (which I hope I do) i'll run a finished set from start to finish type layout and hopefully it will have a good flow to it.

I do have a few other shots with the streak darker, the streak was actually more green kind of on the inside of her hair and not so much the outside of her hair if that makes sence. We shot for maybe a half hour or more before I even saw it. The shot I did in my first post about my crop http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/people-photography/280718-oh-sweet-carolline.html. had it much more visable. I pulled it out more to make it more prominent then boosted the color a bit

thanks for the responce