Headshots with Keely

[cgipson1]

So how do you really feel about this?

What... I am not being subtle enough again? lol!

 

[jaicatalano]

I see the influence of Peter Hurly and that is why the head is chopped off. He is arguably the biggest headshot photographer around and he once said in a class I chop their heads off because you'd be a fool to not know it was there.

Are you using portrait professional to touch up the photos? If you are I would say scale back a bit. She looks too perfect.

 

[cgipson1]

I see the influence of Peter Hurly and that is why the head is chopped off. He is arguably the biggest headshot photographer around and he once said in a class I chop their heads off because you'd be a fool to not know it was there.

Are you using portrait professional to touch up the photos? If you are I would say scale back a bit. She looks too perfect.

Even Hurly only takes the very top of the head off... not the middle of the forehead (the OP did fairly well on that, as I mentioned previously). And on Hurly's horizontal shots ALL have meaningful backgrounds (not dead space) which is not true of the OP's shots..!

 

[Big Mike]

Not that I want to wade into this heated debate...

And on Hurly's horizontal shots ALL have meaningful backgrounds (not dead space) which is not true of the OP's shots..!

I just went to his site, and all the shots in the home page gallery look like the ones above...horizontal, heads chopped and blank white background.

 

[amolitor]

Who cares what some guy does? "Appeal to Authority" is one of the classic rhetorical fallacies.

The only question that matters is, are the photographs any damn good? Why yes, yes they are.

 

[jake337]

I don't care too much about orientation. More interested in the lighting and how the photographer captures their subjects essence.

I feel the OP did a great job in both of those categories.

 

[12sndsgood]

I like the girl and the photos are good to me. just wished you had done some diffrent crops. all of your landscaped crops look the same. cut at the same point of the head, cut about the same point below the shoulders. just for a group of images makes for a boring look.

 

[cgipson1]

Not that I want to wade into this heated debate...

And on Hurly's horizontal shots ALL have meaningful backgrounds (not dead space) which is not true of the OP's shots..!

I just went to his site, and all the shots in the home page gallery look like the ones above...horizontal, heads chopped and blank white background.

Ok.. I must have missed those... I should have said "Most"! lol!

 

[deepsixphoto]

I like these shots a lot! I haven't read the entire thread so I'm not sure if someone else mentioned it - but in #5 there is a bit of mess to her left like you cloned something out/were trying to remove a shadow. I do this frequently so I always look for it! It is very obvious on a white background.

 

[Edsport]

I think too many rules are being applied to photography by people who think this rule or that rule should be applied. We don't all have the same taste as to how things should or shouldn't look. Just my opinion but who am i in this infinite universe lol...

 

[Derrel]

I see the influence of Peter Hurly and that is why the head is chopped off. He is arguably the biggest headshot photographer around and he once said in a class I chop their heads off because you'd be a fool to not know it was there.

Are you using portrait professional to touch up the photos? If you are I would say scale back a bit. She looks too perfect.

Even Hurly only takes the very top of the head off... not the middle of the forehead (the OP did fairly well on that, as I mentioned previously). And on Hurly's horizontal shots ALL have meaningful backgrounds (not dead space) which is not true of the OP's shots..!

See, that's the kind of thing a person with visual sophistication understands..."meaningful background" versus dead, empty nothingness that somebody likes "because I like it that way." THe more-sophisticated a viewer is, the more he or she understands when a composition is working, or when it is NOT working. The issue I have in so many of these situations is not just the lopping off of the top of the head, or the lopping off of the head CLEAR DOWN TO THE FOREHEAD, but the utter lack of a "visual base" for the neck and head...when a head just "appears to float"...well...the composition is not very advanced. I'm not referring to this particular OP's photos as much as a commenting on a widespread, general issue that a lot of newcomers and self-taught shooters seem to fail to "see",over and over and over and over when this topic of camera orientation and subject/camera coordination comes up.

When one crops down into the head, the face becomes larger, but the amount of compositional space thus added for the face comes at the direct expense of the LOSS OF ALL TORSO and typically most of the shoulders....leaving one with a close-up of a "floating head" or a "floating head and neck". The loss of the base for the neck and head makes a headshot done that way feel quite disconnected. Incomplete. Unsatisfying. ALl around, it;'s a negative to the viewer with advanced visual sophistication. And yet, when the reasoning behind the tradition is explained, it's met pretty much with, "But I LIKE IT this way!" protestations, and people who prefer a more-advanced form of portrayal of human beings are shouted down and derided. Kind of like young kids to day who "hate on" classical music....knowing full well that today's hip-hop artists are indeed, the shizz-nit. Without peer! Also--the CINEMA is NOT still photography.

 

[cgipson1]

I see the influence of Peter Hurly and that is why the head is chopped off. He is arguably the biggest headshot photographer around and he once said in a class I chop their heads off because you'd be a fool to not know it was there.

Are you using portrait professional to touch up the photos? If you are I would say scale back a bit. She looks too perfect.

Even Hurly only takes the very top of the head off... not the middle of the forehead (the OP did fairly well on that, as I mentioned previously). And on Hurly's horizontal shots ALL have meaningful backgrounds (not dead space) which is not true of the OP's shots..!

See, that's the kind of thing a person with visual sophistication understands..."meaningful background" versus dead, empty nothingness that somebody likes "because I like it that way." THe more-sophisticated a viewer is, the more he or she understands when a composition is working, or when it is NOT working. The issue I have in so many of these situations is not just the lopping off of the top of the head, or the lopping off of the head CLEAR DOWN TO THE FOREHEAD, but the utter lack of a "visual base" for the neck and head...when a head just "appears to float"...well...the composition is not very advanced. I'm not referring to this particular OP's photos as much as a commenting on a widespread, general issue that a lot of newcomers and self-taught shooters seem to fail to "see",over and over and over and over when this topic of camera orientation and subject/camera coordination comes up.

When one crops down into the head, the face becomes larger, but the amount of compositional space thus added for the face comes at the direct expense of the LOSS OF ALL TORSO and typically most of the shoulders....leaving one with a close-up of a "floating head" or a "floating head and neck". The loss of the base for the neck and head makes a headshot done that way feel quite disconnected. Incomplete. Unsatisfying. ALl around, it;'s a negative to the viewer with advanced visual sophistication. And yet, when the reasoning behind the tradition is explained, it's met pretty much with, "But I LIKE IT this way!" protestations, and people who prefer a more-advanced form of portrayal of human beings are shouted down and derided. Kind of like young kids to day who "hate on" classical music....knowing full well that today's hip-hop artists are indeed, the shizz-nit. Without peer! Also--the CINEMA is NOT still photography.

Well put, Derrel!

 

[jowensphoto]

Pretty girl! Too bad only one of these is in portrait orientation, and all the rest have her head chopped off!

Took the words right out of my mouth.

 

[MTVision]

I'm not swayed by forum peeps. I shoot what I like, how I like, and in the orientation that I like.
L]

It should've ended right here.

 

[cgipson1]

I'm not swayed by forum peeps. I shoot what I like, how I like, and in the orientation that I like.
L]

It should've ended right here.

yea... maybe COPYING Hurly will make him rich and famous! lol! If you can't be original, copy someone who is, right?