Another Self-Portrait C&C

[HWesh]

This was taken with my 50mm 1.8. I mainly want the C&C on the post processing, but you can comment on any other aspect of the photo.

Original Image:

Post-Processed Image:

Cropped:

 

[D-B-J]

I would lighten up the eyes just a touch more, and call it good. And it seems like the focus is on the nose and not the eyes?

Regards,
Jake

 

[Derrel]

T
A
L
L

versus W I D E rears its head yet again. His chin is awfully low in the cropped version. Would have been a simply killer shot is the entire frame had been utilized to begin with. As it is, that big, dark, information-less shoulder on the right hand side of the frame is competing for attention with his face. The shoulder is almost as large as his face, due to the camera originally having been held in the normal, landscape orientation.

 

[D-B-J]

T
A
L
L

versus W I D E rears its head yet again. His chin is awfully low in the cropped version. Would have been a simply killer shot is the entire frame had been utilized to begin with. As it is, that big, dark, information-less shoulder on the right hand side of the frame is competing for attention with his face. The shoulder is almost as large as his face, due to the camera originally having been held in the normal, landscape orientation.

The vertical/horizontal police have struck again!

 

[Derrel]

T
A
L
L

versus W I D E rears its head yet again. His chin is awfully low in the cropped version. Would have been a simply killer shot is the entire frame had been utilized to begin with. As it is, that big, dark, information-less shoulder on the right hand side of the frame is competing for attention with his face. The shoulder is almost as large as his face, due to the camera originally having been held in the normal, landscape orientation.

The vertical/horizontal police have struck again!

Yes, they are always on the lookout for senseless criminal acts! Education is the key to reducing crimes like this. Without education and training in the visual arts, the cycle of poor composition is an endless repeating one.

 

[o hey tyler]

In #1, the white balance is off slightly. If you look closely at the whites of your eyes, they are blue. You can also see a blue tint in the highlights. The other thing you should try in the color version is desaturating the reds. Your hat has clipped colors making it posterized.

 

[Studio7Four]

First, thanks for including the original since you're asking specifically for C&C on the post-processing. The first thing I noticed in the B&W images is the bright white outline which may have been assumed to be from sloppy editing - looking at the original I see that it's from the strong backlighting. I think you did a good job in your B&W conversion process. You brought the attention back to your face, as compared with the color version in which the red hat draws the eye.

T
A
L
L

versus W I D E rears its head yet again. His chin is awfully low in the cropped version. Would have been a simply killer shot is the entire frame had been utilized to begin with. As it is, that big, dark, information-less shoulder on the right hand side of the frame is competing for attention with his face. The shoulder is almost as large as his face, due to the camera originally having been held in the normal, landscape orientation.

Derrel - thank you for providing specific examples of why you would prefer portrait orientation to landscape for this image. You make some good points, though I think the cropped landscape version is right for this shot (the uncropped version does have too much background to the right). The wide brim of this particular hat, and the posture as shown by including his left shoulder, add volumes of information about who this subject is rather than just being a good capture of his face. I agree that the shoulder is an almost informationless blob, but that could be rectified by a slightly deeper depth of focus and a reflector or fill flash. If he had used a vertical orientation he would have cropped so close to his face that you lose some of the effect of his posture, and/or he would have added more vertically - and I don't feel that more hat or neck would have told me as much as his posture does.

 

[HWesh]

Thank you all so much for the comments.

Darrel- I first tried shooting this in Portrait orientation but I was having trouble since I was using my TV instead of the flip out LCD screen on my 60D.

Studio7Four- The bright outline was from a strobe behind me. Also from the very start of the editing process, I knew that this photo in color wouldn't work for me.