Beautiful Illa TFP Shoot

[Destin]

I've been really working on improving my portraiture recently, so I've been doing some TFP shoots with local aspiring models. Here are a few photos from my most recent with a gorgeous model named Illa, ordered from what I consider to be my strongest to weakest work. I'm really looking to improve, so you won't offend me... let me know what you think!

1.)

2.)

3.)

 

[tirediron]

Not bad. A few thoughts for possible improvement:

1. It looks like you're shooting exclusively with ambient light. In this case, while the lighting isn't bad at all, it appears that it's causing her to squint a little bit, and there's a rather strong shadow below her nose. The main issues I see are the fact that there's so much bright light behind her, it pulls the viewer's eye away from the model and into the background, and her pose which has her weight on the near foot and puts her into a masculine pose. Generally speaking you want to keep the weight on the back/far foot which will produce a more attractive curve for the camera.


2. I like the lighting/exposure here a lot better, but there's so much of the image which isn't adding anything. I can't pull up any EXIF data at the moment, but this looks like it was shot with a short-ish FL and a smallish aperture. I would have wanted to be at >100mm and somewhere around f2.8 - 4 for this to soften the background and isolate the subject.


3. This is the strongest of the set IMO, the lighting is pleasing and the pose, with weight on the back/far leg seems less tense. The only point of any note is the positioning of her left hand/arm. Since the bottom of her blouse is so high, and the way her arm sits, the little bit of trouser front we looks odd. I think moving her arm so more denim was visible would have made this stronger.

 

[Destin]

Not bad. A few thoughts for possible improvement:

1. It looks like you're shooting exclusively with ambient light. In this case, while the lighting isn't bad at all, it appears that it's causing her to squint a little bit, and there's a rather strong shadow below her nose. The main issues I see are the fact that there's so much bright light behind her, it pulls the viewer's eye away from the model and into the background, and her pose which has her weight on the near foot and puts her into a masculine pose. Generally speaking you want to keep the weight on the back/far foot which will produce a more attractive curve for the camera.

2. I like the lighting/exposure here a lot better, but there's so much of the image which isn't adding anything. I can't pull up any EXIF data at the moment, but this looks like it was shot with a short-ish FL and a smallish aperture. I would have wanted to be at >100mm and somewhere around f2.8 - 4 for this to soften the background and isolate the subject.

3. This is the strongest of the set IMO, the lighting is pleasing and the pose, with weight on the back/far leg seems less tense. The only point of any note is the positioning of her left hand/arm. Since the bottom of her blouse is so high, and the way her arm sits, the little bit of trouser front we looks odd. I think moving her arm so more denim was visible would have made this stronger.

1.) This is actually shot with one speedlight and a shoot through umbrella, camera left. She was standing in a shadowed area and the background would have been completely blown out at ambient exposures. I kept the background bright(ish) as a way to keep the photo from looking overly surreal, but I agree it's distracting. Noted on the posing tips, and I admit that posing is my greatest weakness.

2.) Thanks! Believe it or not this was shot at 26mm and f/3.5. If I could have it back I'd shoot it at a longer focal length for the compression/bokeh. I shot it this way however because I'm having problems with missed focus at narrower DOFs using this lens.

3.) I completely agree, however her arm is hiding some minor muffin top in this one and I had to edit some out as well.

Thanks for taking the time to critique them in depth, I really appreciate it. Side note.. are there any good resources for learning posing? Classes? Workshops? Books?

 

[Trever1t]

I'll add:

While #1 is my favorite pose of the 3, I feel the speedlight would've done her much better camera right. As it is the face is lit pretty much flat and looks out of sync with the rest of the image.

#2 agree too much negative space which isn't adding to the ambiance.

# She's centered in the frame.When I shoot I leave a bit of extra frame (I shoot a 36mp so can afford a good crop) so I can play with crops in post.It's amazing how much difference a crop can make

Overall not bad but lot's of room to improve. Outdoors with strobes I almost always shoot a bare light for fill. Umbrellas are too customer and mods generally cause my lights to crash in the wind. Keep trying,change light angles and chimp... ahh the advantage of digital.