Natural lighting portraits. C&C please

[kayliana]

I used a gold reflector. I think the pictures may be a tad yellow, but I still think it gives them a nice warm feeling. Let me know what you think, thank you!!

 

[kundalini]

I have a gold cover also, but rarely, if ever use it. I think it gives a sickning, jaundaced look to the skin tone. As your model seems to have some Hispanic ancestry, the gold is definetly overkill. A white bounce would be more favorable IMO.

Second general observation, mind your backgrounds.

#1 - You and your model did well with the hand under chin placement. The line of the jaw is not broken or deformed by her pressing heavily upon it. I think the left hand would've been better if she bent it so that it is out of site. The little piece of hand/fingers sticking out is a distraction to me. The right shoulder and parts of her forearms are overexposed, but the backlighting in her hair is a nice touch. Personally, I think you went in the wrong direction for the reflector. As is, you have placed it lower right. This is causing 1) the catchlights to be in an ackward position (~4:00 o'clock) and has the nose shadow running upwards and creating an unflattering shadow on her neck. Placing the reflector higher and slightly camera left would have given a more natural light pattern with the fall of the sunlight IMO. Background: A couple steps to your left (if possible) would have eliminated the HVAC unit (or whatever, the grey box) as well as removing the tree growing out of her head.

#2 - The position of the reflector (low and camera left) is hitting her belt, neck and mouth, but is not lightening her face. This makes the face look underexposed, whereas, it should be the brightest part of the image. Even though you've thrown the background out of focus, the vertical elements are still distracting to me, as is the walkway.

All that being said, they are still pretty damn good, just a few things I noticed.

Beautiful model. Thanks for sharing.

 

[adarlingshot]

Very nice portraits overall...but Too much yellow for sure The compositions are nice, but the background in the first pic is distracting, also the second pic needed a touch more light on her face.. think you could easily save both of them with a little PS Lovely model!

 

[kayliana]

Thank you guys so much! I agree it's to yellow. Is there a good way to fix that in ps? I did try messing with the white balance. I actually brought the yellow down some, but my teach said I did too much. I see what you mean about the background, in the first one, it's pretty distracting. Which reflector do you guys use?

 

[kundalini]

Which reflector do you guys use?

I'd hazzard a guess that most will start with an el cheapo 5-in-1. That's what I did. There's nothing wrong with them, but they can be unweilding when trying to shoot one handed. I wanted another one and after quite a bit of looking around, I decided on the 2 stop 8-in-1 Lastolite Trigrip kit. It was a good choice for me.

Here's what a 2 stop diffuser can do for you. All of these were shot with the same settings. f/4, 1/250s, 90mm FL, ISO200. I was hand holding the diffuser at arms length.

Straight on

2 stop diffuser

Add a little fill flash

Speaking of fill flash, that would something I highly recommend, an external flash unit. You can start off with it hotshoe mounted and then graduate to OCF (off camera flash). Of course, it would have to be budget conditional.​

 

[kayliana]

Wow, that made a huge difference. Yes, I have the cheap 5 in 1. I have an external flash, but for this particular assignment (for school) I couldn't use it. Only natural light. Thanks for the comments, I will have to check that out