Corporate portrait turned interesting!

[Forkie]

So I was doing some informal company portraits as I always do at work when a bunch of new people start.

Tasha was first up and since she was first, I used her as my test subject to adjust my lighting and find the right window to stand in front of, so she was playing around in front of the camera in her shades whilst I was making some adjustments and this was the result of one of the test shots...


Tasha by Forkie, on Flickr

I loved it, she loved it - one boring job made sightly less boring

 

[Robin_Usagani]

The moire is crazy! Im dizzy.

 

[amolitor]

View it bigger, Robin

What's up with the blurring over her elbows? I kind of dig it, it has a contemporary urbany fashiony look. Also, she's insanely hot.

You might be able to see more stuff than strictly speaking you want to see in the sunglasses.

 

[tirediron]

Not sure what's up with the elbow thing, but that's a great shot!

 

[Forkie]

Yeah, I was in two minds about the blurring myself. It was an attempt to make it appear like I had a shallower depth of field than I actually used. The shot wasn't planned and the camera not set up for a shallow DoF, so I tried to create something that wasn't there at the time, more a kind of "If I could do that again, I'd have done this". Unfortunately I can't do it again as my boss wouldn't appreciate a fashion shoot in the middle of the office! I might end up ditching the blur. Although it does draw more attention to her face.

The moire is only on this small version. Click it for bigger and no moire.

Amolitor: I thought that about the reflection in the glasses too, but having a reflection of "something" in the glasses was better than them being either completely black or with the umbrellas reflecting in them. I had to deal with what I had!

 

[ktan7]

Great shot, but I think it's too edgy for a professional corporate profile shot.

 

[Derrel]

View it bigger, Robin

What's up with the blurring over her elbows? I kind of dig it, it has a contemporary urbany fashiony look. Also, she's insanely hot.

You might be able to see more stuff than strictly speaking you want to see in the sunglasses.

Come on Andrew..."insanely hot"??? dontcha mean insanely HOTT!

 

[DiskoJoe]

Cool. Looks like a fashion ad almost.

 

[Photographiend]

Looks very high fashion... (but I am no expert)

 

[Photographiend]

Not sure if you showed this to her but you should give her a copy so she can enjoy having a photograph that amazing. Most people will never have a shot like that taken of them in their life times.

 

[Forkie]

Great shot, but I think it's too edgy for a professional corporate profile shot.

It's not a corporate profile shot. As I said in the OP, it was accidental while I was doing some test shots beforehand.

Not sure if you showed this to her but you should give her a copy so she can enjoy having a photograph that amazing. Most people will never have a shot like that taken of them in their life times.

Yep, I gave her a copy. She loved it!

 

[sashbar]

I would have removed reflections from her shades. It should be either in both glasses or none. Symmetry is what usually makes the shades look great.

 

[LaFoto]

The moire is only on this small version. Click it for bigger and no moire.

Not quite true, but better than the embedded version, that much is true.
This is one of the "very successful accidents", isn't it. No wonder she loved it. It came out really nice. I can also "do" with the blurring and the reflection. At least you chose blurring and not vignetting - the latter is something I don't like at all, almost never (but that's just me, of course).

 

[Forkie]

I would have removed reflections from her shades. It should be either in both glasses or none. Symmetry is what usually makes the shades look great.

I did remove the reflection whilst I was processing it, but it just didn't look right to me, so I put it back. It made the sunglasses just look like a black block which seemed to cause the image to lose some depth.

The moire is only on this small version. Click it for bigger and no moire.

Not quite true, but better than the embedded version, that much is true.
This is one of the "very successful accidents", isn't it. No wonder she loved it. It came out really nice. I can also "do" with the blurring and the reflection. At least you chose blurring and not vignetting - the latter is something I don't like at all, almost never (but that's just me, of course).

The blurring was quite a planned thing (whether I've been successful or not is up to everyone else). I was thinking at the time "It would've been great if I'd had a really shallow depth of field", so I tried to re-create one and despite what everyone says about the elbows, I really think it moves the eye away from the edges and forces the eyes to concentrate on the white column of the t-shirt, which in turn carries you up to the face.

And I'm afraid I'm guilty on the vignette front too! Although it was toned down a LOT and then blended using the overlay setting and the opacity reduced so it was barely visible. Just another attempt to carry the viewer to the face by reducing any attention that might be paid to the background by darkening it and providing contrast against the bright subject.

I want people to see the background and know that it's a metropolitan city, but also not see it at the same time. It's quite a busy, complicated background, so I wanted to reduce it to more of a texture for the sharp image of her to sit against without completely losing it altogether (basically what I would have done if I'd had a wider aperture at the time!).

There was a method in my madness!

 

[Granddad]

I like it - LOTS! Good work. :thumbup: