Portraits for critique!

[bentcountershaft]

I'm terrible on portrait advice, but I'll have a go.

1. She seems uncomfortable, maybe too stiff. Not digging the tree directly behind her at all. It should either be big enough to fill the majority of the back ground or only be a small part of it. The halfway between thing just doesn't work for me. Overall, she seems a little too bright for my tastes, but this is the only shot that's like that.

2. This would have had a great back ground if she were further away from it so that it was further out of focus. Say if she were fifteen feet from you I'd try to have her thirty feet from the back ground. She seems a little stiff here too, but perhaps I just don't appreciate proper posture.

3. The only small complaint I would have would be the stick going out the side of her head, but it doesn't jump right out at me or anything. This is my favorite of the bunch.

4. I like the tilt on this, it works for me.

 

[mc1979]

Thanks bent..lesson learned on the DOF with the background distance! Her stiffness, is literally how she is. This is my sis-in-law, and she has very straight posture...and it does come off as being uncomfortable looking.

Thanks for your critique..I was expecting you to rip me apart..LOL Now go get you some sinus meds!

 

[KmH]

Gave portraits another go this weekend. Tell me what you think! How are they overall? Exposure, composition, processing?

1.

2 words - S E P A R A T I O N.... and .... L I G H T I N G

Her dress has a fairly busy pattern which is doing battle with the to close, busy bush behind that has colors close to colors in he dress. So she is not well separated from the background by color, blur, or lighting. A crop can eliminate non-productive image space and make the photo more dynamic too:

A light source that is to high can cause other problems:

 

[photobykelly]

I agree, about the distracting backgrounds, a smaller depth of field may help with that. The images are nice and sharp, keep up the good work.