Feedback on a Portrait

[VWKing]

I recently did an engagement shoot for some friends, I have done a few other portraits before but mainly have had experience working with cars.

Please honest feedback/critique would be appreciated.

 

[tirediron]

Critique per req; It's nice ambient light image, but there are a couple of areas where it could be improved. The blown white shirt the gentleman is wearing and the white background really pull the eye away from the faces. I like the way you've framed them against the little bit of higher background, but if you'd brought even a single off-camera speedlight for some fill, it would have really improved the overall exposure. I think too, moving just a bit to your right would have helped the overall composition as we see very little of his face.

 

[VWKing]

Thank you for the feedback, for my first engagement shoot I didn't really think to tell them not to wear all white. I will remember that next time.

IIRC, I used a hot shoe on ETTL.

 

[LilyBee]

You can turn down the whites in Lightroom or whatever you use...since you cant do over the pic itself.

 

[AKUK]

I agree with @tirediron's comments. The exposure values of the shirt have resulted in virtually all detail being lost and it becoming virtually a solid white mass. It certainly pulls emphasis of the couple. Generally your eye is drawn to the brightest part of an image. If you can arrange wardrobe ahead of time, you certainly will have an easier time of it. Aim for more mid-grey tones (doesn't necessarily have to be grey but if it were greyscaled it would fall more in line with skin values). If you can't, I'd aim to expose for the whites. This will result in skin being underexposed but, it is significantly easier to recover details from the shadows than it is from the highlights. You can correct the white shirt in post to some degree, as @LilyBee rightly mentions but, depending on the dynamic range of your camera and the exposure of the image, you might be unsuccessful.

Likewise with regard to the brightness of the backdrop as already mentioned. I don't think it's really adding anything to the image and so either a tighter crop or a portrait orientation would have been better. You could clone in areas of bokeh to the right side but, it certainly would have been better if you had stepped to the right and shot tighter.

The lighting is nice. The rim light provides shape and definition and there is a genuine expression on the woman's face. It feels quite intimate. So I think you've caught the moment and mood well.

 

[VWKing]

Thank you everyone for you input