Experiment - C&C wanted

[ceeboy14]

Two treatments of the same face. Deliberately went way soft and super tight crop to show off here eyes. Shot with a Tokina 100mm MacroTele on the Tele setting. Which, if any do you like best and why?

 

[SCraig]

If you want to showcase the eyes you need to get those shadows out of them. Light from up high leaves shadows from the eyebrows. Some fill light will take care of it.

I don't understand why you would intentionally chose to soften a shot (although I don't really see that much softening). If you want to showcase something it needs to be SHARP.

Saturation is way down in the second one. Her eyes are a beautiful shade of green, use that color.

I think the crop is too tight and too close to being square. A more rectangular landscape crop would be better in my opinion.

 

[BlackSheep]

I like the colour version better, the colour of her eyes is gorgeous and makes the shot IMO.
Something about her eyebrows is bugging me, though, not sure why.

 

[ceeboy14]

I went as soft as I could because the macro side of the lens made her freckles go ballistic. It was more a snapshot and I knew I couldn't get the shadows right..silly me without my reflectors. I am going to do a reshoot with a softbox or two and see if I can still keep the freckles to a minimum, highlight the eyes and do a better job...but they are pretty eyes, aren't they? Hints on how to do that would be greatly appreciated. People shots are pretty foreign to me outisde of standard school pictures, inc. shots.

 

[SCraig]

I don't shoot people much either, I'm just the kind who knows what I like when I see it.

The brows over the eyes cause shadows when the light is up high. You can also see that her lashes were causing shadows on her eyes. Same reason for that. To neutralize that, especially for a close-up shot, you need to get some light below the brows. I don't really know enough about portrait photography to recommend a solution, but perhaps a reflector down low to kick some light back into her eyes? Or just lower your lights some so that they aren't as high above her eyes?

 

[Rick58]

Hey CB, I'm not a protrait guy so I can only say what I think. I wouldn't use B&W to showcase a set of eyes and the skin tones on the color version kind'a looks like the pastel hand coloring of the 30's. For me, beautiful eyes need to be surrounded by beautiful skin tones. Just a simple man with simple tastes.

 

[LaFoto]

Rick's right about the impression of the second being hand-coloured: that was my immediate impression, too, when I saw that photo. Plus the shadows of the lashes ... AND one other thought that I have when I see this: since you decided to leave the whole face inside the frame to show off her eyes, you should not crop of parts of her lower lip!

 

[ManualMode]

Sorry, but it just looks like a tight crop of a snapshot taken in awful midday light. Just keepin' it real.

Suggestion: wait for a cloud, and then have her hold a white piece of paper under her chin to bounce the light back up into her eyes..

 

[RufioPow]

As it's already been mentioned before the crop is too tight, leave some negative space around the eyes and mouth or lose em all together. If you were dealing with freckle issues you could've just softened em or brushed em out in PP but overall it's a decent shot, you just gotta play around with it more, I found using a silver reflector directly below really filled in the brow and let the eyes pop.

example:

Portrait of Jeff by Grant Lechner Photography, on Flickr