High School Senior Portrait. CC Appreciated.

[STiZzle2010]

First time I was asked to take a senior portrait. This young lady was in a crunch and needed a photo immediately otherwise she would not be in her yearbook. I'm always looking to improve my portraiture and would appreciate any feedback.

f/2.5, 1/200th, ISO 125, flash fired.
Taken with a Nikon D5500, Nikkor 50mm 1.8G lens, and edited in Lightroom.
Facebook -0015 by Hebee's Visions, on Flickr

 

[mmaria]

- eyes are overdone
- I would tone down the background a bit
- and I would pose her differently. This way you made her leg and bottom more prominent then they should be

 

[Designer]

I think you have placed the subject too far to the left, and left too much BG above her head.

So I cropped a bit more like this:

 

[STiZzle2010]

I like this crop a lot more!

 

[tirediron]

I agree with Maria's comment on the background, and designer's crop is an improvement. That said, this is a good, solid portrait. The exposure is good, and I don't think the pose is bad (once you crop it). For a 'spur of the moment' shoot? Well done!

 

[STiZzle2010]

Thanks. I can try toning the background down a bit more in Lightroom. Is it the exposure, vibrance, or saturation that you would reduce?

 

[tirediron]

I would probably do a curves adjustment to drop both brightness and saturation.

 

[STiZzle2010]

I'm not too familiar with curve adjustments but I'll play around. Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Derrel]

I think the park background is rendered almost perfectly. I think I even see a duck in there! It's a nice, nice DOF effect, and the angle of view of the background landscape is wonderful.

 

[STiZzle2010]

Thank you! Yes there were quite a few ducks and geese behind her in the grass and water. I was hoping that they wouldn't be a distraction lol.

 

[Derrel]

I'm not too familiar with curve adjustments but I'll play around. Thanks for the feedback!

In this quick 10-second adjustment, I cropped the image a little bit, then pulled the exposure down about .4 EV on everything, then created and adjustment brush to dodge with, and using about a 30mm diameter circle I dodged her face and hair, and the jeans and lightened them .23 EV. That lightened the jeans a bit, and the face, but left the background a little darker than it was in the original. I think if you were to go too dark on the background, it would look like a dull, ugly day.

 

[STiZzle2010]

That looks great and thank you for the explanation as well!

 

[JacaRanda]

In LR, you can grab the adjustment brush and do very light/little negative exposure compensation (the burn brush may already be set to a value that would work). Make sure auto mask is selected and lightly brush the background. With same brush, you can decrease saturation slider. Neither should be very much imo.

 

[JacaRanda]

Oops, too slow again.

 

[STiZzle2010]

In LR, you can grab the adjustment brush and do very light/little negative exposure compensation (the burn brush may already be set to a value that would work). Make sure auto mask is selected and lightly brush the background. With same brush, you can decrease saturation slider. Neither should be very much imo.

Thank you. I'll make a few more adjustments when I get home. I appreciate the input and advice. I love this forum!