C&C on these self portraits please.

[dannylightning]

Threw on my cowboy duds and went to town.

View attachment 89805

 

[Rick50]

Pretty good. Your making progress for sure. My favs are #1 & #4.

 

[Derrel]

You are making progress. I like shots that have catchlights in both eyes most of the time. One suggestion is that these look a little bit "under", meaning they could use a bit of brightening in software, and also, the white balance is just a bit too cool for my taste--the light has that sort of UV whiteners in the fabric look of many Made in China light modifiers of the last few years, so I would suggest that the white balance number needs to be pushed upwards a bit with the flash unit you are using. Also: the flash unit(s) have their own color temperature, and some studio flash units have uncoated flash tubes which are "cool" and others have UV-coated flashtubes, which give warmer light. The combination of flash unit and specific modifier can vary the color one gets, and I think these are too cool. ANother 150 to 250 units higher on the white balance would look better I think.

Your shadow side is blending into the black background...a reflector placed close to you would give your shirt just the barest hint of an outline on that far side, and that would really add a lot of "presence" to your body. I think honestly, what is needed is more light on the body; there's a tendency to light the face and head a lot, and especially at close umbrella-to-subject distances, where the light does not spread much, that the lower parts of a human figure are severely under-lighted by a single, smaller umbrella.

Of course, it depends on what the desired lighting effect is, but if you want the clothes to form a substantial part of the overall picture, I know from experience that with the enclosed softbox type umbrellas at close range, they do not light the body enough if the light is good on the face.

 

[dannylightning]

I just warmed one up a bit more and I guess it does look a bit nicer

I think I have the brightness for my monitor on 56% and the images looks correct on my monitor, I think my colors are calibrated pretty well but I am not sure how to properly set monitor brightness.

the softbox umbrellas give me a very cool and blueish temperature so I do need to fix that for every photo which is not a big deal to me

here are my 4 favorite and I fixed them up a bit.

 

[jwilly1]

I like the fixed ones. I learned something today. I had no idea that the cheaper modifiers and strobes could have this issue.

 

[dannylightning]

this is how mine look without fixing the white balance with my cheap-o umbrella soft boxes. I think these things work well but I do need to fix the white balance for ever picture.

when I am just using the speed lights without the modifiers I get a much warmer temp

 

[JustJazzie]

My favorite here is number three in set two. Two of two comes in second. You're lighting has come a long way in such a short amount of time! I agree with Derrel about trying to bring out your shirt from the background a bit.

I think the weakest in this set is the last shot in set two. I just can't bring myself to like it. Your eyes read as sad, and I don't think the pose flatters you epically compared to the rest of the set.

That hat looks good on you by the way, ;-) I think an avatar update is in order here.

 

[dannylightning]

Thanks.

yeah the last shot is not all that flattering, I kind of like how one side of my shirt fades off into the shadows, I could bring it out more but than the background starts to show a bit too much, it might not show once I turn it into jpeg though, with the raw file I can always see the background a little bit and than its pure black once I turn it into some other type of file.