My Wife

[cumi]

Hi!

Finally my wife aggreed to pose for a shooting a short time. Posing is a heavy word... She stayed stil for 30min and allowed me to take some shoots, when our 16 mounths old son was finally sleeping. We were of cource both very tired, after a long day...

I stil use my Powershoot A520. Maybe I will buy a DSLR this year (I dreaming of a D70s with 50mm 1.8 , but yet there is no sense for buying it. The camera alone will not produce nice photos for me.

I didn't used flash, only the available spot-ligth (lamp). That's why I had to shoot with ISO 200 (ISO 400 is useless on my PS camera), so there is a lot of noise. I did some gaussian blur with gimp to reduce it a bit. I also adjusted a bit the histogram. The photos are also not precisly focused, because my camera was unable to focus in such a low-ligth situation without flash, so I used focus lock and manual focus sometimes.

I didn't wanted to shoot clear, colorful portaits. I wanted to experiment with the shadows, exposition and composition.

I really want to improve my skills, so please give me a feedback! I didn't posted this thread in critique-group, because there are 7 photos, but I would really appreciate a critique. I am visiting every day this forum, trying to improve my eyes for photographing. It's a long way, I know, but maybe this will be the first step.

Some problems I allready noticed myself. The backround wall is very disturbing, but my wife didn't wanted to move somewhere else, like in a front of a mirror or a solid white case. Also, the light on the last 6 photos is coming from above, so the shadow of her nose is also quite bad... On the 1. and 2. photo I used a spotligth from a side.

OK, here we go:

1.

2. This is not the same photo as the 1. The eyes are shining - I don't like it.

3.

4.

5. I wanted here a sepia high-key photo.

6.

7. This is maybe a bit to red, instead of sepia.

8.

Thanks for looking!

 

[Christie Photo]

Well... it looks like the best place to start might be the placement and quality of light. You need to make the light source larger and softer. This is done by bouncing the light into a reflector like an umbrella or a white panel of some kind.

Then, place the light in a position that creates flattering light. I looks like your light placement on most of these has caused heavy shadows in the eyes... something undesireable.

I played with one to show you the difference when the eyes are brightened.

I hope this helps.

Pete

 

[cumi]

Thanks Christie! I surfed around here and really, I can recognise now, that I have a problem with too dark faces with portaits. I will take care of that next time.