Portrait

[cauzimme]

I did a photoshoot today with natural light coming throught the windows.
White are blasted behind her, but I kinda like the overall image or the girl expression.

 

[timor]

Nice. Clean up the shadows in the background if you can. IMO it doesn't look good.

 

[cauzimme]

Nice. Clean up the shadows in the background if you can. IMO it doesn't look good.

You mean the curtain ?

 

[killerseaguls]

I don't think it's a bad picture. The curtain does look a bit odd since you can't see it fully. But if that was your purpose than good job.


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[timor]

Nice. Clean up the shadows in the background if you can. IMO it doesn't look good.

You mean the curtain ?

Ha ha ! Darn "technology". Not the first time. I've seen your picture first time on I think low grade monitor which didn't display the picture as I see it now on my home monitor. I retract my remark, picture looks fine now to me. I gonna have to be careful with this and not to comment until I can see pictures on my own equipment.

 

[JoeW]

First, thanks for sharing your work. I'm impressed at how often you've shared work and asked for input--this will really shorten your learning curve--so kudos to you for doing this.

I think it's a good photo. I don't mind the background (barely there curtain). Though you could selectively increase exposure in the background and blow it out completely and it would look even better I think. Also, I'd make it a head shot (or more accurately...head and shoulders) thus cropping her off at the wrist (so we don't see any clothing). While I think a drooping strap or a top can add some lovely contrast, it doesn't do anything for me in this shot. Meanwhile, the lovely soft light (just perfect for boudoir sets...I hope you got to shoot some of her in lingerie or implied nudes with that light) really flatters her.

Here's a hint: digital cameras still don't capture the dynamic range that the human eye does. So in cases light this (with light like this) something lacy will work best for the clothing. Right now the slip/dress/top comes off as a black towel except for the strap (not very romantic or sexy). Also, think of putting some tape or a clip on her right side so we get more of a waist definition. Right now, that fabric just hangs--it makes it look like she has no curves. You want that fabric to hug her body rather than just drop straight down.

And I'll say just one more thing that I mentioned earlier but I want to re-emphasize: that light is gorgeous. You can see the value of the curtains as a scrim (to soften and modify the light). That light removes skin flaws, softens everything, allows shades of gray to emerge, makes expressions more complex. For a lot of the girls you're shooting, that's a great light to give a romantic feel to a shot, or hide acne scars or soften foundation/pancake that someone may have put on.

 

[JoeW]

I took the liberty of making edits to show you what I had in mind when I talked about the crop and also removing the background (which I'm actually fine with). I would have liked to have shown more of her left forearm but that gets in to converting the top in to skin and I wasn't going to mess with that--just doing a quick edit to illustrate another option.

 

[The_Traveler]

Quite lovely, fix the curtains if it pleases you.

I would extend the photo a bit; she is looking up in a dreamy way and the margin is close on top and left.
I would give her some room to set the scene a bit.

 

[cauzimme]

Thank to both,
I agree, I tought the composition was a bit weird, I have one other that looks sightly better in term of composition but the other side breast is showing,

Also, I learned photography with someone from the older generation, a great photographer but my baggage experience is in analog photography so I was wondering about croping. In darkroom I had rules about the format of my photos. In photoshop what's the rule. I never change the format unless i'm opting for 1:1
I'm always looking for a certain uniformity in a serie. Whats the rule? I love the one without the dress, it's that way I should have crop, but I also liked the bra falling from her arm.

I also like the second edit

Thanks both of you for your great input With critique from others, I begin to be more and more critique towards works of others but also mine, which is always difficult at the beginning but it's the only way to progress.

Meanwhile, the lovely soft light (just perfect for boudoir sets...I hope you got to shoot some of her in lingerie or implied nudes with that light) really flatters her.

Yes I shot some, i'll publish them in the portrait section Thanks.

 

[Derrel]

Joe's crop and elimination of the dress makes an alternate image to the original. As to "knocking out" the sheer curtains...that's a judgement call...eliminating the curtains removes the realism of the location; meaning quite simply that in the original, the tall city buildings that are hinted at gives this an urban boudoir feeling, while eliminating the sheer curtains entirely makes the shot become a generic white backdrop shot, one that could have been done anywhere...so...I disagree about stamping out the sheer curtains in a sense. The end result, the desired end result I should say, is what really counts.

I think now that you have a much more-capable camera, with a 2.7x larger sensor, and significantly better imaging capability, that you might want to think about exactly how you're going about shooting. I saw from another thread that you're using a prime lens, which many times will be "the wrong length" for the shooting environment's physical size. The new camera, and the new lens, and the way the focal lengths actually function in smaller, indoor spaces, means you can now shoot images more loosely framed, and crop off your borders, and allocate final spacing with much less of a quality loss than you could with the older D300. I mention this because you ask about the rules for cropping, and the old ways, the old opinions about cropping: I think one needs to be freed from rules regarding cropping, because frankly, almost any image can be cropped differently than the original in-camera aspect ratio, and a better image can be made through cropping. Some images crop exceptionally well, and may yield more than one image, and more than one aspect ratio.

The amazing thing about the new, 24-MP FX Nikon cameras is the image quality; it is now possible to crop 1/3 to even 1/'2 of a 24MP FX image, and throw away half the frame, and create a truly lovely image. It's possible to make a gorgeous 5:4 aspect ratio image, a 3:2 aspect ratio image, a 3:4 aspect ratio image, a 16:9 aspect ratio image, or a 1:1 aspect ratio image--it ALL DEPENDS on how the crop relates to the scene you shot! There is an old-fashioned 3:2 aspect dogma, the old idea of printing with a black frame around a 35mm film negative, with the negative carrier filed out, to create the so-called knockout borders, showing the viewer that the photographer was skillful/lucky enough to find an image that worked well within the camera's rigid frame aspect ratio,etc,etc.. I was educated/indoctrinated that way, but have now come to regard that POV/fixation as representing a rather limited, narrow-minded, ridiculous lack of logic and an utter lack of flexibility. If you want a series of images to share an aspect ratio, then it might be best to frame them that way, but be aware that such rigidity might really represent the old, "If all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail" axiom.

 

[FITBMX]

I think it is a great photo as you shot it. But I really love that smaller crop! And some great info was posted!!!

 

[Bod]

I like the curtain, I would try some different poses, look up some guides on posing technique its incredibly importand, but the dreamy look was good, maybe next time try giving some negative space in the direction that shes looking by aving her in the right of the frame this way shes less centered and looking at the edge of the frame and gives emphasis to that dreamy stare