Rockin the Beard

pixmedic · Oct 18, 2015

DSC_5743 by pixmedic, on Flickr

tirediron · Oct 18, 2015

Nice - getting model references from Dan?

pixmedic · Oct 18, 2015

tirediron said:
Nice - getting model references from Dan?

Just changing things up a bit

FITBMX · Oct 18, 2015

I like it, but his arms being out of focus is distracting for me. But it is nice!

pixmedic · Oct 18, 2015

FITBMX said:
I like it, but his arms being out of focus is distracting for me. But it is nice!

may recrop it higher up

The_Traveler · Oct 18, 2015

It looks to me like the hot spot of the light is on his neck, which is lighter than his face.
The light here is so balanced that there is no shadows, texture or much character to his face.
His hair sort of merges with the background
Being posed straight on to the camera- with a single color shirt and his arms just dangling - just makes everything south of his chin not very interesting.

pixmedic · Oct 19, 2015

The_Traveler said:
It looks to me like the hot spot of the light is on his neck, which is lighter than his face.
The light here is so balanced that there is no shadows, texture or much character to his face.
His hair sort of merges with the background
Being posed straight on to the camera- with a single color shirt and his arms just dangling - just makes everything south of his chin not very interesting.

that's not a hot spot on his neck.
his neck is actually lighter than his face. that's the actual skin tone difference. it looks pretty much the same in person.
maybe the effect is exacerbated by the lighting.
his hair does sort of merges with the background. im good with how it looks though.
yes, the lighting is balanced in the same way I do almost all of my portraits. so...yay for consistency.
If I had lit this one differently, it would have been different from the shots in my portfolio that he looked at and liked, and subsequently hired me based on. I will concede that its not for everyone, but it is for some.
while it may be sans shadows, there does appear to be tons character in his face. i mean, seriously...its impossible for him NOT to have character with a beard like that.
I actually like the pose here, though the somewhat OOF arm is bothersome. as mentioned earlier, I may recrop this higher up.
believe me, there is no lack of interesting things south of his chin.

anyway, I appreciate the feedback and will endeavor to incorporate the information into my knowledge base and see what happens the next time this situation arises.