Michaela Part 2 C&C Please!

[GabeW]

A few weeks ago I posted a couple photos I had taken of a friend of mine. It was my first time seriously trying portraiture, so they were not very good. But I got some very helpful feedback and tried again. Here is the result. We took a bunch of photos in a few places, but this one was my favorite. It is certainly much better than last time (it is even in focus!) but there is still plenty I could be doing better. Please leave constructive criticism and feedback. It was extremely helpful last time.

We were outside under fairly bright sun so I used a 42" reflector.
Taken with canon T2i and 17-40mm L
1/250sec f/9 ISO-100
Edited with photoshop CS6

 

[CdTSnap]

Its really good, only 2 things are, you cut the top of the head off (just) and very slightly more light on the dark side of theface would be good (easy fix in PS), otherwise I think its great.

 

[The_Traveler]

Quite a lovely shot but I think it could be improved.
She is quite symmetrical but she isn't symmetrical in the frame and she is tilted
The background is too bright, her face is too dark - the brightness of teh background pulls my eye away.

So I fixed the top of her head, added some on the right and straightened her upright.
The darkened the background and lightened her face and sharpened only her face.

I think the result is nice; certainly a lovely shot.

 

[The_Traveler]

And with a bigger catchlight

 

[D-B-J]

And with a bigger catchlight

Perfect edit. Now I really really like it, and I only really liked the original.

Cheers,
Jake

 

[rexbobcat]

She likes kinda magenta as well. But other than that and what others have said, I like it

 

[binga63]

it's close .... listen to the crits they know what they are talking about.... nice pic

 

[GabeW]

I'm really glad you guys like it! Certainly an improvement over my first post haha

Thank you very much for the feedback, once again it is extremely helpful, especially the fact that you took the time to actually edit the photo. I really like a lot of what you did with the edit. I have a bad habit of cutting of the top of her head, I know that, something I need to work on. The enhanced catch lights are awesome (the original catch lights were just from the reflector, so they wren't too dramatic.) The change in composition is interesting. Generally I try to avoid dead center compositions because normally I find them very boring, but after seeing your edit I actually rather like it. You are right, the symmetry of the photo seems to work with the symmetry of her face. The only thing I don't think works perfectly is the straightening. I agree that it is unfortunate that she is not straight upright, and fixing that is good. But then the horizon line is tilted, and at least I personally find this more annoying. Maybe that's just me though. The comments you made on the lighting are also very interesting. I actually darkened the background and brightened her face a ton from the original photo. But I was worried about going too far because it started to look unnatural. I guess I didn't really need to be worried. It definitely looks better with her bring the brightest part of the photo. Finally, I agree that it is a little magenta. I tried a little to fix it, but I couldn't seem to without making the photo awkwardly yellow. Plus I kinda like the color, it gives a slight surreal effect which I liked, especially with the really saturated water. But it is good to know if it is distracting.