Natalie Grace

[JayG1372]

A good friend of mine asked if I would do a portrait of her daughter in her cheerleading uniform. I felt it would be great to help me continue advancing, and brought me a chance to use flash as fill light.

Any constructive criticism is always welcome as I strive to be at the level of a professional one day!


Ps. Sorry all I have is the Instagram crop on my phone at the moment

 

[idcanyon]

I think the first think you need to think about for improvement is the pose. Posing is a whole field of study in its own right in portrait photography. This outfit (dang, my daughter would not be allowed to leave her bedroom in that!) is asking for a more glamorous pose. At the very least she needs to be told what to do with her hands.

Your use of flash as fill is very subtle, which is good. She actually look like she was primarily lit by a reflector off to camera right, but perhaps there was a natural reflector over there?

I fill like a little longer focal length from a slightly higher angle would have worked better--more emphasis on face, less on body.

 

[Braineack]

Lighting looks good overall, but I think you could have gone a stop darker, and filled more, that way the BG wouldn't be so blown out -- looks like the exposure was pretty much perfect for the stone wall. But it's not bad overall -- i like that you didnt crop the hands, but its tight at her head.

 

[JayG1372]

Thank you All for your input.

If I may reply to some of the mentioned tips:
@idcanyon : That is her cheerleading uniform lol We did it cause her regular cheer photos were so bland and boring and her mom wanted something else.

No reflector was used, I tried to position myself accordingly to optimize my fill light so it did not look overly filled as this was my first attempt using fill light outside.

In terms of angle, I did not have much to work with, and I am learning on posing people, This window frame was an old furnace building that got blown up, nothing around was high enough for me to come from above near it.

Thank you very much though for your honest critique, I will keep this in mind on my next shoot.

@Braineack The crop on here is from instagram, I have more room above on the original.

I will go back and edit it and see if I can fix the blown out background and other stuff you mentioned.