Recent E-Shoot

[deepsixphoto]

Did an engagement shoot last night. They were such an adorable couple! The weather was not cooperative at all - super windy and chilly, but we had to make it work. Suggestions and criticisms welcome! Photos taken from Facebook, so don't mind the compression.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.
They love HDR so I tried to make something work for them:

 

[dandaluzphotography]

No. 2 is nice and No. 5 is really nice. I really like number 6. They all seem a little soft. That's what my very inexperienced eye can see.

 

[Rwsphotos]

Very nice and they do look soft but you said their off face book so could be the compresion I don't know. Number #1 could use A bit of fill light maybe and I'd clone the red bouy out. Outherwise Impressive.

 

[pixmedic1]

Very nice and they do look soft but you said their off face book so could be the compresion I don't know. Number #1 could use A bit of fill light maybe and I'd clone the red bouy out. Outherwise Impressive.

I agree with the Buoy part. my eye goes right to the red dot. otherwise very nice photos.

 

[deepsixphoto]

thanks everyone - i agree that red buoy is a problem - i will probably go back and clone it out. i hate what Facebook does to photos - i feel like some of them look almost grainy. they do look soft here.

 

[jowensphoto]

5- wonderful shot of the bride-to-be. Grain really can be your friend!
6- quite lovely. I think a minor composition adjustment (as in shot at a slightly different angle) would have made this perfect.

 

[fjrabon]

1) Needs some fill light or a reflector, faces are too dark compared to the background
2) if you're going to do a centered, symmetrical type photo, then it should probably be perfectly symmetrical. Very slightly off-centered seems to be disorienting. you should have just as much of the wooden hand rails on both sides. so, you should have moved over about 8-10 inches to your right when taking the picture.
3) his face seems out of focus, but that could be the facebook transfer. Would have probably had him hold her the other way as well, so that the engagement ring was visible. If in doubt you want the ring to be visible as much as possible in engagement photos.
4) White balance seems really cold here. Look at their skin tones and photo 2 and compare them to here. In a single set skin tones shouldn't vary that much.
5) Love it. Seems soft, but again, maybe that's just the transfer, and not the original image
6) I think you need to make this a LOT more cartoon-y if you're going to use this picture. as it, frankly, looks really bad. There's a ton of ghosting on the subjects, and a lot of chromatic aberration (or at least what looks like CA) on them as well. Also, people who say they like HDR usually mean they like really cooked HDR. What program did you use for the HDR? This doesn't look like photomatix.

 

[fjrabon]

another thing in 6 is that you have two strong lines that suggest what the eye should be drawn to, the pier line and the line of the sunset on the water. However, the first draws the eye to a random pole, and the latter draws the eye to your logo. The people seem sort of randomly tossed in there, instead of the subjects of the photo. Compositionally they'd be the third thing your eye was pushed towards (or perhaps even fourth, as the eye is going to be drawn to the blown out part of the sun peeking through).

 

[deepsixphoto]

Fjrabon - thank you so much for such extensive critique. It is appreciated. I totally agree that #2 is disorienting. I debated whether or not to use the shot (or how I could crop to fix it) and in the end the clients really liked it so I decided it would just have to stay as is. I felt like a crop might have ruined it. I am going to try #1 with a little fill flash to try to brighten it up. I struggled with keeping skin tones consistent throughout the shoot. There were so many different lighting conditions. Definitely something I'm going to be working on!!

 

[deepsixphoto]

and to answer your question - that actually is Photomatix. I tried like heck to de-ghost them but alas that was the cleanest I could get the photo. I agree with the CA (it was even worse before I took the image into Photoshop to try to correct it). Any advice for how I could neutralize their skin tones without making them look like they were pasted into the photo? I never include people in HDR, so it was definitely a challenge to keep it from looking silly.

 

[fjrabon]

Fjrabon - thank you so much for such extensive critique. It is appreciated. I totally agree that #2 is disorienting. I debated whether or not to use the shot (or how I could crop to fix it) and in the end the clients really liked it so I decided it would just have to stay as is. I felt like a crop might have ruined it. I am going to try #1 with a little fill flash to try to brighten it up. I struggled with keeping skin tones consistent throughout the shoot. There were so many different lighting conditions. Definitely something I'm going to be working on!!

well, the good thing about shooting in RAW is that white balance skin tone issues are mostly fixable in post. Glad to have helped. Thanks for not being one of those who view any critique as an assault on you personally!

and I still think the pose in #2 is good enough to have kept anyway. Her legs and but look amazing in that photo, which is probably why they both liked it, at least on a subconscious level. Women love photos where their legs and butt look amazing. Guys don't mind them either, haha. Just a suggestion of something to be aware of in the future. This is why I claim that no matter how experienced you are, you always need to consciously consider framing.

 

[KmH]

Overall I was disappointed in the quality of the light that was used.

When you limit yourself to whatever ambient light is available, you often get lighting so flat, or so harsh that makes it almost impossible to make your subjects really 'pop'.

You'll get much better, and more C&C if you post 1 photo at a time.

If you're getting paid to shoot, you really should be posting in this TPF forum - The Professional Gallery