Portrait Critique

matthewclarkphotography · Jun 7, 2007

Hey Guys and Girls, I just found this forum site and well I am new here, this is my first post. Little about me, currently a hobbyist photographer who is thinking of going full time into it. The reason why I am posting this photo is that I am wanting to learn more about portrait photography.

Comments and Critiques are welcomed!

Images RAW, except for B/W conversion

Thank you in Advance for your help!

MCP

More Portraits: HERE

More of my Photos: HERE

motcon · Jun 7, 2007

if you are looking for general comments and feedback, i suggest the 'general' gallery. you'll get plenty there.

if you desire posters to engage in some serious thought about your work, i suggest you post one image.

if you were to ask me which one i'd post if it were my work, i'd go with the first one.

matthewclarkphotography · Jun 7, 2007

engage

motcon · Jun 7, 2007

matthewclarkphotography said:
engage

hah, damn you are quick.

i'm sure that others will be happy to engage. i certainly will do so as well, but at the moment i'm on a laptop and i don't trust the screen one bit, so i'll have a go once i get to my pc.

mysteryscribe · Jun 7, 2007

cropped too tight ,,,,needs more contrast.....that pretty much says it all for me... everything else looks fine.

skieur · Jun 7, 2007

Cropped too tight. More contrast would not work unless it was very selective. Position-wise it would have been better if his head was back a bit and not interfering with her eye. I would also postprocess to brighten the area around her eyes a little.

skieur

mysteryscribe · Jun 7, 2007

Just a general tip here, back in the old days we had to shoot pretty much viewfinder crop. That was in my case at least both economics and trying not to stretch the film past it's limitations in case of a big enlargement was necessary, Now it's not so bad. If I were you, I would make portraits with a little, not a great deat, of extra space so that I could come back and do several different crops to determine which worked best. At least until you have shot about a thousand people.

BoblyBill · Jun 7, 2007

mysteryscribe said:
Just a general tip here, back in the old days we had to shoot pretty much viewfinder crop. That was in my case at least both economics and trying not to stretch the film past it's limitations in case of a big enlargement was necessary, Now it's not so bad. If I were you, I would make portraits with a little, not a great deat, of extra space so that I could come back and do several different crops to determine which worked best. At least until you have shot about a thousand people.

That is some GREAT advice!! I'll probably use this when I shoot a wedding this weekend (I'm freaking out about it actually).

The_Traveler · Jun 7, 2007

My first response when I looked at the posted picture was that this was a very nice looking couple and must be in love (or great actors). That being said there are several distracting elements that take over the picture.

There is the big empty space in the middle, his ear obscuring her eye, the space at upper left past his head, the darkness around her eyes and her cut-off fingers.

If I had this picture to work with -and wanted to preserve it - I would crop much tighter to remove as many of the distracting elements as possible, lighten her 'raccoon' eyes and darken the edges. All this to focus on the real elements as much as possible - their attachment, her loveliness, his great profile.

below is a very rough edit (I didn't try to do anything to her eyes)
Thanks for the opportunity to see this picture.

mysteryscribe · Jun 8, 2007

funny how it looks one way to one person and another to others. I guess all images are like that. The crop Travelor proposes would never occur to me because it just is too extreme in my opinion. But as I always say that's why there are horse races.

I have just never liked images of parts of people. They have a nice shock effect on me, but I can't really get comfortable with them. It's like the craze for Itallian shoes when I was a kid. They looked great in the store but they didnt wear well.

Most portraits are part so I guess I should explain. When we shoot portraits there are usually shot showing complete parts. Completed heads, ect, I know people have odd crops and sometimes they work even for me. I just don't think this one does and though much better the proposed crop doesn't work for ME either. If you have the complete heads of them in the unedited file, I personally would recrop it with everything there.

I think the raw emotion of the shot sells it not the odd crop. I still think it's a little flat looking also just My opinion.

The_Traveler · Jun 8, 2007

I don't disagree with MS, but the point is that critique needs to address the picture that was taken. Critique of the picture as presented shows what the viewer is seeing and how the viewer responds to that.

Not everything should be solved by reshoot advice.

mysteryscribe · Jun 8, 2007

Funny in most cases I totally agree with that...

Salvage what is there is the approach I take to critique most of the time.

I think it would be appropriate for the photographer's growth to do both perhaps. To say this is what i think about your portrait in general now to make what you have the best it could be, I would do this. If you don't do that, I think you run the risk of perpetuating bad shots, just to have them saved at the last moment by some fancy editing to make an okay shot when a better shot could have been made the next time of shooting.