Priscilla (Critiques please!)

[Austin Greene]

Well I did another TFP shoot today, and I have to say it was a bit of a mixed bag. I had a volunteer assistant along, but turns out that slowed me down some for reasons I'll leave out. Normally it's great to have free help, and while it was useful here, it simply wasn't needed.

Anyways, I had never met the model prior to the shoot, so we went around downtown to a few spots I had scouted out earlier in the day. The lighting was, well, crap. I had mis-timed the sunset, or at least how it would filter through the buildings (I needed to be there earlier), so it was an entirely flash-based shoot. I've also never worked in such cramped conditions with two flashes, which made things interesting.

Still trying to get a handle on this whole two-light thing. I'd really appreciate your thoughts, on the lighting, and on the composition. Composing portraits is just plain foreign to me, unlike macro.

1.

Priscilla by TogaLive, on Flickr

2.

Priscilla by TogaLive, on Flickr


Critique of my own:
1. I don't have much on this one, besides that I wish her expression was just the tiniest bit more natural. I also need to work on my composition when it comes to what to have a model do for mid-chest shots. I probably should have had her turn away from the camera slightly, and maybe pull the shirt in a bit to get rid of some of the white.
2. I'm very torn on this one. When I look at it, something about it just feels right. I like it at first. But then I get picky. I see the riffles on her shirt, and man do they bug me (working on cloning them out). I also don't like that both hands are somewhat cut off, but that was due entirely to spatial constraints, the wall behind her ends at the end of each photo, and meets up with some seriously ugly piping. I'm just not sure what I think of it. I do like the lighting, and the background. I played with how in focus I wanted the brick, and I went for this one. I do wish I had added the tiniest bit more fill on the left softbox to raise the shadow a tad. Also, anyone have thoughts on the white balance? I can't decide if it's too warm, what with all the red coming off the brick.

Thanks again for all the critique!

Austin

 

[Juga]

Between both photos the color is off and like you mentioned the second looks much warmer than the first most likely due to the bricks. The white shirt doesn't bother me as much as her posing doesn't 'match' her expression they seem to be competing against each other...that is the best way I can explain it right now :/ Are the pipes so bad that you couldn't clone them out? It is brick after all...

 

[julianliu]

Anyway, I like the picture and you did a good job! If you want to improve then here is my comments:

The second picture is warmer than the first one, but it does not brother me, Maybe you can turn down a little saturation on her face if you mind it, but I think the white balance is fine since the red wall is on her back, which I do not think it reflects much reds on her. I had problems before with model wearing yellow shirt and all her chin had reflected yellow light. But in your situation, I do not see this problem.
I do not mind the riffles on her shirt, I am more concerned with the bright spots on her faces, both sides on the forehead and cheeks. It's little distracting to me since they do not look so pleasing. You could reposition the softbox the eliminate the hot spots. The little white on the brick next to her head, the left side of the picture, looks distracting to me. I would PS it out.
The hands cut off issue, I think I would notice that during the shot since I usually mind the boundaries, whether I would do something to correct during the shot is another topic if the shooting was rush. But if you do notice and want to correct it, a slightly different pose probably could do the trick to solve the problem. If you do mind this so much, maybe cut off a little more, like cut off the bottom part may look better ? It's up to your taste.

 

[ronlane]

Nice photos. Being very picky on them, I would say that in #1, you could have composed with a little less room above her head and that way it didn't appear to cut her off at the elbows. In #2, it looks like you could have taken 1-2 steps back and gotten her entire hand in the shot instead of cutting off her fingers.

 

[DiskoJoe]

#1 - needs to be centered and you have a winner.

#2 - You clipped both of her hands!!!!! DONT clip hands or appendages at joints. Lay off the vignette too.

Model is cute though. You could try some varying expressions as well but she has a nice smile. Lighting looks decent, no real problems with that at all.