Be My Valentine

bulldurham · Jan 29, 2019

Agree with all the kudos on her, the poses, even the lighting...to a point, and that point really has more to do with the backdrop, though unfortunately the lighting only acerbates the issue: the backdrop should be seamless in this pose as the drop line under the bench and the horizontal wrinkles take too much from the shot. Some of the fixes can be done in photoshop as I've demonstrated, but this is far better accomplished using a paper BG that is pulled completely under the bench: Seamless where the BG and ground meet and no wrinkles. I did think the lighter areas were a bit "hot," so toned them down a smidge.

As always my critiques are always about the work and not the person and always meant to help, never hurt...as it is just another point of view.

smoke665 · Jan 29, 2019

@bulldurham I'm surprised no one caught the seam or wrinkles earlier. I posted these without catching it either. When I edited the full set, I corrected, but didn't take the time to repost. I have several options including seamless paper, but nothing large enough for the shot. Originally I had planned on an industrial setting using a concrete block wall as the background, but it just wasn't working. This was a last minute change and is a good example of what happens when you do things last minute.

adamhiram · Jan 29, 2019

smoke665 said:
I'm surprised no one caught the seam or wrinkles earlier.

Just to offer another viewpoint - I noticed both, and didn't think much of it. I thought the wrinkle was subtle enough that it just looked like part of the background texture to me. As shown above, it looks to be pretty simple to even out in post if it bothers you. As for the seam where the backdrop meets the ground, that's something I've been struggling with in my own work. I learned pretty quickly that if I try to add a sweep under the subject with seamless paper or a canvas backdrop with a young child, it will be destroyed before the first shutter click. I actually didn't find the seam too distracting in the original, but admittedly the cleaned up version looks a bit cleaner and keeps the focus on the subject...

smoke665 · Jan 29, 2019

@adamhiram as I'm sure you've found also, when you move the subject further away from the background the larger that background has to be. The bench was longer then I needed, had it been shorter it would have helped. Savage has 107" wide paper that's very reasonable until you add the $106 shipping cost. Being in the middle of nowhere has disadvantages sometimes.

Except for the seam the canvas works fairly well. In previous uses I've found that stretching it helps with the wrinkles. Being a cheap drop cloth some of the horizontal lines are not wrinkles, but differences in the weave. The original idea was to paint it, which should help on that.