First time shooting a person, C+C please

Misfitsracing · Jul 25, 2011

Well, people have made it into my pictures before, but this was one of the few times I was shooting with the intent of capturing a person. Nothing really great, as this was a spur of the moment snapshot while I was sitting across from my sister, though I though it was enough that I could get some criticisms for the next time I am shooting a person.

Unprocessed, just set the WB and Cropped:

Because of the skintone, I decided that I would desaturate the image a whole bunch and bring out the blues:

-Walt

noodles · Jul 25, 2011

not feeling the second, but the first one, since she is looking to the left, i'd crop to position her to the right of the picture. Makes it more pleasing to the eye. Sometimes, it's intentional that the person is in the middle, but in this case, i don't see the intent.

NikonME · Jul 25, 2011

Why not process the skintone and see what you can come up with?

NikonME · Jul 25, 2011

I realize this was a candid shot. When you do a profile shot, a tip would be to ask the subject to look a little to the left instead of straight. This will cause the pupil/iris to fill some of the white of the eye while still giving the impression that the subject is looking straight. This will avoid the "dead eye" look.

Misfitsracing · Jul 26, 2011

I didn't spend a ton of time trying to process since I have had several homework assignments that I figured were probably more important than my continued monkeying with photoshop. I might try to bring out the skin tone later when I have time more time to screw around. Thanks to both of you for the feedback.

Jeatley · Jul 26, 2011

Profile shot almost always bad. compossing her in the dead center of the shot, bad. Lighting was bad. How much do you understand about composition?

oldmacman · Jul 26, 2011

So wait a second... you snap off a photo without giving it much thought and then ask for some C&C. Then when you get some, your reply is that you had too much homework to really do anything with the photo? What value do you hope to take from that process?

NikonME · Jul 26, 2011

Misfitsracing said:
I didn't spend a ton of time trying to process since I have had several homework assignments that I figured were probably more important than my continued monkeying with photoshop. I might try to bring out the skin tone later when I have time more time to screw around. Thanks to both of you for the feedback.

I had other things I could have been doing with my time too, but I did take a minute (or less) to mess with your picture a little, just to give you an idea of another approach you could have taken.