Low Key Portraiture

[theraven]

Am I headed in the right direction? Hints, tips and general help to improve much appreciated! First attempt!


Emz by Raven Photography by Jenna Goodwin, on Flickr

 

[Robin_Usagani]

put the light closer, bring the subject farther from the background. The closer the light to the subject, the easier it is to control so that the light does not reach the background.

 

[theraven]

Noted, thank you

 

[ktan7]

Great shot. But too much shadow under the eye. Did you use a reflector?

 

[theraven]

Yes but a bit too high I think.

 

[Derrel]

The bright white forehead, bright white nose, and then the bright white chest skin areas are all very diostracting. It looks like she wore a crew-neck T-shirt to the beach and got a really BAD sunburn...and is now wearing a scoop-neck ladies' style blouse...the big white skin area on her upper chest is exceedingly distracting. all the empty black space to the right of the frame looks bad too. She also has a lot of dead, empty space above the (invisible) top of her head. Not sure what's going on with the framing choices here...

 

[TMC]

The bright white forehead, bright white nose, and then the bright white chest skin areas are all very diostracting. It looks like she wore a crew-neck T-shirt to the beach and got a really BAD sunburn...and is now wearing a scoop-neck ladies' style blouse...the big white skin area on her upper chest is exceedingly distracting. all the empty black space to the right of the frame looks bad too. She also has a lot of dead, empty space above the (invisible) top of her head. Not sure what's going on with the framing choices here...

I would have to agree with this 100%. Even if you just cropped it down, removing the most of the empty space on the right side and some off the top, and then darkened the chest area to match the tone of the neck than the image would be alot stronger.

 

[DragonHeart]

I would like to see seperation of the subject from the background. Maybe a rim light?