People Portrait

[The Phototron]

1.

2.

I bounced the flash off the wall to her right, and a gold reflector beneath her face.

Comments and critiques are welcome as always.

 

[petey]

nice color

 

[mrvgson]

thanks for posting you lighting technique. I like shot2 more.

1 seems a bit blurry to me. is it the DOF? I dont know.

 

[The Phototron]

thanks for posting you lighting technique. I like shot2 more.

1 seems a bit blurry to me. is it the DOF? I dont know.

No, I apply a blur layer on purpose, and masked out her eyes.

 

[spiffybeth]

too much gold in the first one, imo

 

[The Phototron]

nice color

Thanks for taking time to leave a comment.

too much gold in the first one, imo

Thanks for the comment.

It's actually a bit more prominent in the .psd file, but I prefer it that way, for the shot anyway.

Well I wanted to add more color to her face, maybe gold isn't exactly the right color.

 

[LaFoto]

I was reading the comments and reading more comments, formulating my own in my head already, when I found Spiffybeth's comment, and she says exactly what I thought immediately. Actually, I thought you had two competing light sources, natural on the left, lamp light on the right, until I found out you worked with a golden reflector.

You say you wanted the colours to be so many, but are you sure you really want them to compete as much as they do here? It isn't too bad in the second, where here "darker" cheek looks rosy, which represents freshness, youth, health and all that. But the first ... is irritating with these colours on her skin, so I think.

All in all, I must say you have a lovely model here and I like her posture and expression in both photos!

 

[The Phototron]

I was reading the comments and reading more comments, formulating my own in my head already, when I found Spiffybeth's comment, and she says exactly what I thought immediately. Actually, I thought you had two competing light sources, natural on the left, lamp light on the right, until I found out you worked with a golden reflector.

You say you wanted the colours to be so many, but are you sure you really want them to compete as much as they do here? It isn't too bad in the second, where here "darker" cheek looks rosy, which represents freshness, youth, health and all that. But the first ... is irritating with these colours on her skin, so I think.

All in all, I must say you have a lovely model here and I like her posture and expression in both photos!

Thanks for taking the time to formulate a thoughtful comment. I have silver and white reflectors in addition to the gold one, but the gold one wasn't used as much. So I thought why not give it a try and see what happens. And for that session I used it throughout. I must admit I still in the trying-out-different-things phase.

The posing is quite frustrating actually, I have to give the same instruction for every shot of her. "Sit up straight, move your right shoulder forward a bit, tilt your head toward your right shoulder a little, open your eyes a bit bigger."

I have yet to develop an effective way to communicate the instructions for posing subjects or an intuitive sense of what's the right way to pose a particular model. I follow the instructions for traditional feminine posing step by step. Lucky non of the shots show hands or legs.

 

[LaFoto]

Interesting to hear about your experience with posing someone, for that is something I know NOTHING about and with which have a difficult time myself, too. It would, if at all, only be my sister I would need to pose, and normally SHE has the better ideas as to how to pose HERSELF (and I then usually feel a bit silly, which I probably am), but I have never even read up on "traditional feminine posing" and all its steps, so I find all this very interesting.

And hey: testing different things is always good. How else would we ever learn?

 

[The Phototron]

Interesting to hear about your experience with posing someone, for that is something I know NOTHING about and with which have a difficult time myself, too. It would, if at all, only be my sister I would need to pose, and normally SHE has the better ideas as to how to pose HERSELF (and I then usually feel a bit silly, which I probably am), but I have never even read up on "traditional feminine posing" and all its steps, so I find all this very interesting.

And hey: testing different things is always good. How else would we ever learn?

Here is a very thorough guide to posing: http://jzportraits.home.att.net/

Another member from this site posted in another thread. It is very helpful with clear illustrations.