First attempt at portrait C&C Please!!!!

[JaJaPumBA]

 

[smurff13]

I like your lighting on the face and body. I'm not sure about the arm. Pro's outweigh the cons

 

[JaJaPumBA]

heres another!!

 

[JaJaPumBA]

and another any more feedback?!

 

[Garbz]

Like the first one the best in their current form. The selectively coloured one looks scary. I would not consider this for a normal portrait ... ever. Would look a lot better in full greyscale IMO. I'm not sure what's going on in the last one.

In all of them the shadows are very dark. A white card or silver reflector placed opposite to the light would help balance the image more.

 

[JIP]

I think if you took out the selective coloring in the one portrit with the eyes it would be a great shot. I agree with the person who said that that selective coloring is a bit disturbing.

 

[JenR]

The lighting is nice on the first one, but it would be better if there was more room around her head and arm. The "border fade" is really distracting since it creeps into her hair. The color seems very off in the second one. To me, it looks like her hair is green. My monitor is not calibrated, though, so I might be the one who is "off".

If the third picture didn't have selective coloring, I would really like it. The selective coloring really detracts from a nice portrait, IMO.

 

[JaJaPumBA]

thank you for all the feedback I will take it all in and I will always need room for improvement I know..here are a couple more if yall dont mind.

 

[The_Traveler]

IMO, these are much too contrasty and the shadows are much too deep for good, standard (as in non-stylized) portraits.

The best one is the third one posted (without the scary blue eyes) because it concentrates on the nice face (it could use some cropping) but it does have the big meaty forearms taking up a good portion of the person part of the image.

In every one of the others, there is way too much emphasis on the least attractive portions of the subject. The color and focus are off and the cropping is not good.

You would learn more if you picked one to post and got detailed responses rather than posting a bunch and getting general comments that really aren't going to help you in the long run.

Lew

 

[JaJaPumBA]

well i didnt think I was that horrible...

 

[The_Traveler]

well i didn't think I was that horrible...

Please don't take this as a personal insult. I didn't say that you were horrible, I said that these pictures needed some rethinking.

No one improves without dealing with constructive criticism.

 

[JaJaPumBA]

any suggestions on how to hide flaws such as "meaty arms" and such because really wouldnt know where to begin lol

 

[The_Traveler]

My suggestion is that you explore the more general subject of posing and lighting and that will invariably lead into the issue of how to deal with 'problem parts.'

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[MurWin]

The composition on these is okay, but I agree w/the others... they're very dark and a few of them have pinhole lights in the eyes. Were you just using your on board flash? What was the set up?

 

[wildmaven]

any suggestions on how to hide flaws such as "meaty arms" and such because really wouldnt know where to begin lol

Photographing women of size adds an extra layer of thought on top of the usual portrait. You need to keep an eye out for those arms, belly rolls, the roll of fat that appears around the back at the bottom of the bra, and double chins. Rolling the arm in a different direction can hide the waddle (hand on hip, rotate shoulder forward, for example). Watch the lighting on where it hits the tummy and double chin. Your color picture of the gentleman really shows the extra weight around his middle. A standing picture would've helped eliminate some of that. (Is that a hole in his shirt in that area, too??) The woman has amazing eyes, and it is a shame you didn't do a full face, head and shoulders shot, with soft lighting. The arms folded, chin resting on the arms shot was great for hiding her upper arms and chin. Great job on that one!