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Portrait For Critique, please.

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Hi Guys,

Took this one last night.One monolight with an umbrella bouncing back the light. Silver reflector on camera left for fill in.

I changed the background from white to a very dark shade of gray. No particular reason. I just think it looks better.

2cqlkdy.jpg


Thoughts?
 
I think it is dramatically underexposed. It looks like the image has been softened and manipulated, in some indefinable manner, to get it to look the way it does. Also, the odd, square-ish aspect ratio is disturbing to me. The man also has far too little room at the top of the frame--his head is almost touching the top of the frame. A standing man framed horizontally, in a bust pose, makes no sense.
 
Yeah, the post processing is really drawing my attention away from the picture. I agree that this should have been in portrait... I'd like to see the original shot for comparison.
 
I think it is dramatically underexposed. It looks like the image has been softened and manipulated, in some indefinable manner, to get it to look the way it does. Also, the odd, square-ish aspect ratio is disturbing to me. The man also has far too little room at the top of the frame--his head is almost touching the top of the frame. A standing man framed horizontally, in a bust pose, makes no sense.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll try to up the exposure on it a bit. When I set the exposure in Lightroom, it was with the original white background so perhaps the dark background makes it look darker overall. I agree after reading your comments, that it does look underexposed. When changing the background color, I did my best to remove what appears to be a halo around the subject. I didn't get rid of it all and I think that is lending to the manipulated look that it has. If anybody has any tips on how to do this better, please let me know (CS5).

The only manipulation on the photo was changing the background from white to black, blemish removal, slight noise reduction and sharpening. I didn't do any skin smoothing on it.

As far as the pose, this is my weakest skill. I'm definitely working on learning this better. I'll definitely remember your comment for the next time!

Danny
 
Why did you want to replace the white background? With a photo like this, you could have probably just took the magic wand to the white and painted it black. Or, you could replace the white color with black since there is no white on the body/shirt.

Mark
 
I would not go as far as to say it was dramatically underexposed, but it is dark, about a half stop or so. The lighting you used did provide some noticeable modeling which is always good, but there are some things about lighting and texture on the face that are bothersome; they just don't look natural. Too much tweaking in post processing. Also, there is very little separation between model and background. His hair pretty much melts into the background. For this reason, unless you are using a black background you want to to intentionally Zone 2 black, and make other provisions for separation between model and background, you should always light it in some matter. Something else that always bothers me is subjects who are placed directly in the middle of the frame. Although his eyes are aligned iwth the top horizontal third, which is ideal, his face is dead centered. Ideally, at least an eye, or even the bridge of the nose, should be placed at the intersection of the upper horizontal third and one of the vertical thirds. Otherwise, it looks more like a mugshot or passport photo. His shoulders and face are also square to the camera, which makes the composiition more like a mugshot or passport photo. A landscape orientation does not work here; portrait would worked a lot better. Don't be afraid to move the model around and have him animate his poses. What happens outside the frame is sometimes just as important about what happens inside the frame!!!

On the good side though, nice job keeping reflections off his glasses, a lot of people miss that and it's distracting!
 
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Thanks for the comments on this guys. Every bit helps!
 

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