Took your comments and tried again... Comments and Critiques?!

kundalini · Nov 22, 2013

The lighting is very harsh. Notice how all the shadow lines are crisp and well defined. There is no gradual transition from light to shadow. Did you use a light modifier? I know you state that it was windy, but if it was a bare flash, zooming the head to narrow the light spread to target just her face might have been a bonus for the final result, with less intensity of course. People with round or oval facial features will look slimmer with a short lighting pattern and a 2/3's mask rather than full face.

The red nose and finger tips are tell-tale signs of how cold it must've been. Selectively bringing down the red channel in those ares would be a benefit IMO.

EDIT:
Derrel beat me on the 2/3 face and short lighting..... my mother called after I started replying. She took precedence.

Derrel · Nov 22, 2013

D-B-J said:
What do you mean by 2/3 face? Have her turn away from the sunset slightly, and place the flash camera left? Just trying to get it straight for the next time i shoot.

Jake

This article http://digital-photography-school.c...camera-angle-to-flatter-your-portrait-subject
has some good illustrations showing full face, 3/4 view, 2/3 view, and profile. (I like the views of the face, but do not agree with the way the photographer has told the model to strain her eyes to look back at the camera in the 2/3 view...I think that type of "eye cut" as it is called, looks bad many times.).

And yes, I mean moving the light to the left side of the frame, and having her turn into the light, and than creating a relatively wider shadow on the right, which would effectively make her face more slender, and add some more drama. Right now, the way it was done was using "full face", and the light sweeps across the entire width of the face, which combined, really widens her face, and makes it look "flat", and wide, and then the shadow under the nose adds a lot of visual weight to the nose. The hands also have a pretty prominent shadow too.

This is one of the tricky things about speedlight lighting; you have ZERO visual clues when the person is modeling/posing in front of the camera, and you are not constantly able to literally "SEE" what your lighting setup is actually doing, until you look at a tiny LCD screen image of person.

Let me just say that "broad lighting" seldom flatters a woman with a round or wide-ish face, whereas "short lighting" does very much tend to flatter. Those are some terms, broad lighting, short lighting, and full-face, and 2/3 view that can help you tremendously.

Edit: Oh, as I was typing out my reply, Kundalini above mentioned short lighting and the 2/3 view; he has studied these issues, and it's a MAJOR part of the reason his self-portraits are so danged good....even though he's a furry-faced old boar...his shots give him those movie-star good looks not because of the hats, or the bare chest, but because he understands lighting science and practice!!!! and..he loves his mom!

kundalini · Nov 22, 2013

D-B-J said:
What do you mean by 2/3 face?

Both eyes showing fully, but only one ear.

D-B-J · Nov 22, 2013

Derrel said:
D-B-J said:

What do you mean by 2/3 face? Have her turn away from the sunset slightly, and place the flash camera left? Just trying to get it straight for the next time i shoot.

Jake

Click to expand...

This article has some good illustrations showing full face, 3.4 view, 2/3 view, and profile. (I like the views of the face, but do not agree with the way the photographer has told the model to strain her eyes to look back at the camera in the 2/3 view...I think that type of "eye cut" as it is called, looks bad many times.).

And yes, I mean moving the light to the left side of the frame, and having her turn into the light, and than creating a relatively wider shadow on the right, which would effectively make her face more slender, and add some more drama. Right now, the way it was done was using "full face", and the light sweeps across the entire width of the face, which combined, really widens her face, and makes it look "flat", and wide, and then the shadow under the nose adds a lot of visual weight to the nose. The hands also have a pretty prominent shadow too.

This is one of the tricky things about speedlight lighting; you have ZERO visual clues when the person is modeling/posing in front of the camera, and you are not constantly able to literally "SEE" what your lighting setup is actually doing, until you look at a tiny LCD screen image of person.

Let me just say that "broad lighting" seldom flatters a woman with a round or wide-ish face, whereas "short lighting" does very much tend to flatter. Those are some terms, broad lighting, short lighting, and full-face, and 2/3 view that can help you tremendously.

Edit: Oh, as I was typing out my reply, Kundalini above mentioned short lighting and the 2/3 view; he has studied these issues, and it's a MAJOR part of the reason his self-portraits are so danged good....even though he's a furry-faced old boar...his shots give him those movie-star good looks not because of the hats, or the bare chest, but because he understands lighting science and practice!!!! and..he loves his mom!

Which article? And thanks for your reply. I am still quite new to this, and am trying to learn the million little things that make or break a portrait.

Jake