Few photos from a recent senior photoshoot.

[Cyotheking]

C&C Welcome. Always learn a lot from you guys :mrgreen:

#1


#2


#3
I like this photo quite a bit, but I think I missed the focus on her eyes :/ face seems quite soft.


#4


#5

 

[tirediron]

C&C per req:

1. Ouch! I ache just looking at that! I like the composition and the balance of her and the rows of trees; well spotted. I DON'T like the background, and if I were you, I'd be tempted to through a bit of Gaussian blur on that just to take away some of the sharpness. I think a fill light aimed directly at her would have helped.

2. Significantly under-exposed; a cute, sassy shot, but too dark. I'm also not fond of the bright & dark areas of the background. While nicely out of focus, they're still rather distracting.

3. A reflector was desparately needed here to balance out the ambient. The specular highlights on her forehead are very strong, and the neck of her violin is all but lost in shadow.

4. Level this so that she doesn't look like she's about to fall over! Exposure is better here, but the highlights are still WAY to strong. (have I mentioned fill light?)

5. Cute, but again fill light required.

Overall, a nice set with some good thought going into pose and composition, but your lighting (or rather lack thereof) has let you down. Even a single speedlight in a small/medium soft-box would have taken these from "Okay" to "Great!".

Just my $00.02 worth - your mileage may vary.

~John

 

[Cyotheking]

I must be really bad at using fill light, because I used it on every single photo taken here.

I think I need to calibrate my monitor because I don't see any of them under exposed on mine :/

Edit: Where are my manners...thank you for the critique. I always learn a lot from it

 

[ronlane]

The only thing that I would add to John's comments is that in #4 there is a halo around her like you burned the background but not her. My suggestion to that would be to do in in layers and use a layer mask.

 

[tirediron]

I must be really bad at using fill light, because I used it on every single photo taken here.

I think I need to calibrate my monitor because I don't see any of them under exposed on mine :/

Edit: Where are my manners...thank you for the critique. I always learn a lot from it

No worries...

Okay, if you used fill light in all of them, then you need to work to get the most out of it. Since #3 is, IMO, the one with the biggest 'lack of fill' issue, how about explaining exacty how you set the shot up and let's see if we can't reverse-engineer a better plan for future work.

 

[Cyotheking]

Here is the original image. ouch, I don't remember it looking this bad...Not sure why I didn't redo this after looking at my screen :scratch:
It also appears I got quite carried away in the editing process. The vignette seems too strong.

Settings:
ISO: 100
Shutter speed: 1/50th (Perhaps this is where the soft face came from)
Aperture: f/5.6
Flash power: Can't remember at all...

My general rule with fill flash (Probably a bad one to be honest) is to just adjust the flash power until things look filled in on their face.
Also don't know why I didn't bother to use the reflector at all. If I recall correctly, I think I tested it and it didn't seem like it was doing much.

As for as positioning her went, I don't know why she is where she is. Because the sun is beating down pretty hard on the right half of her head.

Edit: Just a random note, I don't have have Photoshop (Just LR4) So I can't do anything with layers or Gaussian blur.

 

[tirediron]

A flash meter makes life sooooooooo much easier. My approach would have been to meter the background and then meter the highlight on her head and set my flash to be 2/3 - one stop over background and [hopefully 1/2 stop below the highlight). Shoot in manual at 'X' and f5.6 seems like a good aperture. I would also have shot this in portrait aspect, moving back enough to include all of the violin and down to the waist.