More Senior Portraits

[shorty6049]

Well, i posted my attempt at senior portrait photography a while back, and i went and tried again in a little bit more of a controlled situation this time. Let me know if theres anything i can do to improve these, or general comments, thanks!

 

[oldnavy170]

Well I think they look good but his hands aren't showing in any of the shots. Maybe you can backup alittle and capture his hands too. I think #1 would of looked better but still a nice shot.

 

[Kaye68]

This one is lacking something, maybe add more contrast to it to make it pop. I am also missing the hands. The crop or angle is just not working for me. But not too bad.

I find the top part of the photo to be very distracting. Too much going on up there and could use some dof.

I am not sure about this one. The picture is small but I am not sure about the focus, it almost seems soft.

What were your settings/camera/lens used for these. That is usually helpful to know when trying to comment on photos.

 

[shorty6049]

i'm not really wanting to look it all up right now, but the camera is a sony alpha, the lens was either a 50mm or a 35-200 ,(switched off between them a few times)

 

[uberben]

Hey tony,

we've talked about these a little before. I like the first shot by far the best. The skin on his face looks a little blown out, but I like the hotfudge conversion you did on it. The crop doesn't bother me all that much since you are naturally drawn to his face and eyes. I like the brick too, very clasic and simple.

The second one wouldn't be too bad if you had him sit further away from the plants in the background. I tend to shoot my portraits with my 70-200 and then zoom in on them in order to bokeh out the background. This probably would have worked well in that photo. I would say try a little fill flash on him as well to get that face lit up a little better. You could also try to use that Digital fill flash action you have on that.

Last photo: Looks good. Its a fairly common crop that you will see in a lot of yearbooks. Which is good to have for him as an option to choose from.

 

[shorty6049]

yeah, i actually cropped that one quite a bit in PS becasue i knew he needed a yearbook shot, it was a lot wider before, similar to the first one

 

[shorty6049]

bump

 

[Sw1tchFX]

I suggest buying a speedlight or two and a sync cable or pocket wizards for syncing, that way you can have more control over the lighting. You can use the ambient light as fill, and that way, you can avoid the "racoon eyes" form the shadows. You can also use one as a key, the other as a kicker or fill, or hair light, or backlight, or background light, whatever.

http://strobist.blogspot.com will give you ideas, guaranteed.

 

[Alex_B]

i could repeat what the others said ... but I won't

nice shots anyway, but the first and last show, that with the brick background it does work better in colour IMHO. the bricks are very intense in b&w and if they are in colour it gives a better separation between background and main subject.

 

[shorty6049]

sw1tch fx- i'm using the sony system right now so pocket wizards are out of the question (even if i could afford them right now) and i dont have the money for another flash so i'm sort of working with what i have, but thanks for the suggestions!