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vipgraphx · Nov 24, 2015

Good Afternoon TPF.

This past weekend I took the kids on a holiday portrait session and would like some critique if you will.

My youngest boy who is 9 loves attention. While we were taking photos he wanted a specific pose and so I wanted to what I call more a dramatic lighting situation. This was taken at 11 am so I tried to make it look more like the evening with main source of light coming from the top. I used Three off camera flashes for this picture.

What do you think about this pose and lighting. I have others that my wife prefers of him facing the camera but, this was my sons favorite thus wanted more critiques on this particular photo.

Thanks for you time.

zion3 by VIPGraphX, on Flickr

pixmedic · Nov 24, 2015

a little too much on top, i think, for me.
i would crop it down to just the green area below the bricks.

The_Traveler · Nov 24, 2015

Not for me.
Pose looks forced,
Hard look seems inapprpriate considering the clean pants and perfect shoes - and age.
No eye contact and we are looking right into his unlined, smooth cheek

Derrel · Nov 24, 2015

I agree with Pixmedic--the bricks are killing the shot...crop down to just the smooth masonry wall. Also, crop out or clone out the far side green paint drip...that's a distracting and strong elelement that close to the edge of the frame, so that needs to go. Overall, I like hard lighting a lot of the time, but here I think there's too much fill light lowering the constrast and making the shot look unnaturally forced...the shadows are unnaturally open...the shadows need to be DARK to make the hard light seem real, seem reasonable. I would clone in small, sharp catchlights onto the eyeball surface. The excess HDR or excess digital fill has also made his new, white shoes look too dark...not bright enough, not white-white...again, this is mostly a contrast issue. This would benefit by being given more SNAP!