First maternity pics C&C please

[Puma]

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I did a maternity shoot yesterday... and I was kinda bummed.. I had brought my alien bee 800 and actually left the plug at home grrrr... so I was left using my sb-800 as the primary flash... I did the best I could with it.

Please let me know how bad these shots are and what I can do to improve... thanks

#1

#2

-Puma-

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[William Petruzzo]

Number 1 isn't bad. It's too dark so we've lost the detail in here hair, which I think is throwing off the composition. It also looks like it's suffering from some pretty bad image noise. I find when images can't be rescued from heavy noise, it's sometimes successful to boost the exposure in Photoshop to exaggerate the noise then display it in black and white, which is a context that people generally accept noise in.

In all honesty, I find the second one a little bit confusing. It's not entirely clear that she's pregnant. The combination of soap and her hands on her breasts almost lends to a sensual feel, which I'm not sure is what you were going for.

I definitely think that the Alienbees light would have helped a lot with these. But I think there's real potential in them too.