Some favorite portraits; comments welcome

dallasimagery · Feb 4, 2011

Hi, since I'm new I thought I'd post some of my favorite portraits - +/- comments welcome. Most of these were studio shots (not a fan of natural light; you can shape it, but you can't control it!

This made the cover of a Houston-based magazine:

This girl came to the studio as an aspiring film producer looking for some "edgy" rocker type shots, so we gave her this:

This one made it to a local night-life magazine:

From a recent wedding:

Thanks

Robin Usagani · Feb 4, 2011

Nice work. Welcome

gsgary · Feb 4, 2011

A night with no3 :whip:

Nice shots

kundalini · Feb 4, 2011

What happened with #4? All the rest are well done.

Okay, I put my glasses on and can see that there is focus on #4, but it's not quite up to par as the rest IMO.

Thanks for sharing.

mishele · Feb 4, 2011

#5 is my fav. Excellent set of shots! Thanks for sharing them and wecome to the forum!!!

GeneralBenson · Feb 4, 2011

Some real nice light in there. But if you want some criticisms, I think the expression on the first gal, looks drunk/high/mid-blink. I can only guess that you were going for a eyes closed, softer look, but either there's too much eye liner or her eyes aren't all the way closed, or I don't know what. But her eyes look weird to me. And also, her left hand, that is on her elbow is in a super tweaky position. Doesn't look natural at all to me. Looks sort of like when someone takes too much ecstasy and ends feeling them self up, all tranced out in the corner. Not that I know anything about that. Seriously. I don't know anything about that. But that's how I imagine it in my head.

Also, I'm not a fan of the crop in #4. Cropping her arm off seems weird in the first place. But especially with her looking to that side, it feels very cramped and awkward to have her looking out of the frame, and her face is up against a wall. Also, her hand look a little bit like she's playing air guitar. Hands are so hard to get natural looking. I think it's the hardest part of the body.

dallasimagery · Feb 4, 2011

GeneralBenson said:
Some real nice light in there.

Thanks! I think the greatest photo posing and such is still a fail without a sound knowledge of good light.

GeneralBenson said:
But if you want some criticisms, I think the expression on the first gal, looks drunk/high/mid-blink. I can only guess that you were going for a eyes closed, softer look, but either there's too much eye liner or her eyes aren't all the way closed, or I don't know what. But her eyes look weird to me. And also, her left hand, that is on her elbow is in a super tweaky position.

Completely natural... She totally did that all on her own. She was playing with the necklace... this was a hollywood glamour type session; hence the high ratio lighting. That's actually my very favorite genre of photography - just love it! Also, regarding your question on the makeup, there was heavy makeup here (applied by a pro makeup artist) since this was a hollywood glamour type of shot, and that was common back in the 40's.

GeneralBenson said:
Also, I'm not a fan of the crop in #4.

That's cool, I can see how some might not like it. It's kind of out of the ordinary, I personally love it. It doesn't break any "guideliness" or rules per se, but I can still see how some may not like it. It's different. I think it helps create a sense of direction in the photo.

GeneralBenson said:
and her face is up against a wall.

Why do you say that? It definitely wasn't

GeneralBenson said:
Also, her hand look a little bit like she's playing air guitar. Hands are so hard to get natural looking. I think it's the hardest part of the body.

yes they are! So many people overlook the hands, and they're very difficult to pose. For example, they should never be "flush" or square to the camera; they aren't here, it's mostly the edge of her hand, and it has a nice, graceful flow to it. I actually had her reach down and tug on her dress a bit. This was actually a fashion shoot for her; she was at the time starting her own line of clothing.

Thanks for the comments guys!