Rodeo Brothers

[ksmattfish]

The older brother's girlfriend dragged him to a portrait shoot with me last fall. He wasn't very enthusiastic about getting romantic photos done, but apparently I made it fairly painless as he called me this summer to get portraits of his brother and him in their rodeo gear as gifts for their parents.

and from the earlier couple's portrait session

 

[craig]

Beautiful, beautiful work! I get a strong sense of tradition and a feeling of their personalities.

Love & Bass

 

[JimmyJaceyMom]

Very cool shots. I might consider cropping that first one instead of having them in the middle of the frame, my eye is drawn to the left side of the pic where there really isn't anything going on that adds to the pic, rather than to the subjects themselves and you've got a really cool shadow form their hats going on in the fence beside them that is being missed with that comp.

 

[mat wildlife]

#1 appears too cluttered and the opposing shadows is distracting.
I like 2 and 3.
#4 needs contrast or levels tweaking.
None of these indicate that the guys are in their rodeo gear - they just seem to be hanging about in a stables. Might be better if they were handling or carrying items of equipment.

 

[Arch]

Its always fun to get different opinions....

#1 appears too cluttered and the opposing shadows is distracting.

For me this is the best shot. It has a nice range, good lighting and shows me a glimps of thier environment.

I like 2 and 3.

Agreed!

#4 needs contrast or levels tweaking.

oh god no... remember, different people monitors are callibrated differently, on mine it looks fine.

Overall a good set... i do like the last one alot too, i think you do great with your B+W conversions. :thumbup:

 

[bdavis]

#1 is very good but seems a bit distracting, maybe crop closer?
#2 is awesome

Anyways, fantastic work, keep it up!

 

[Big Mike]

Great work Matt, it feels like their personalities are coming through in these photos.

 

[ksmattfish]

Notice the crazy outline artifacts in the pant legs in #2. That's not in the full size, processed version. To make the web version I exported from LR reducing the size, sharpen for screen normal, and save as quality 75. Watch out for that sharpen for screen; I think that's the culprit.

#1 is crazy busy for a portrait, but for some reason I dig it. It was the first set up of the portrait session, and looking at it now I can see that I was interested in the scene, and then just plopped them in it. Probably not the best plan. I warmed up quick; most of the rest of the portraits from the session had much simpler backgrounds.