Two portraits

[Mewle]

HEy just want a general opinion on these two.

1#
Mirnes by Mevludin Stenaklic, on Flickr

2#
Eldin by Mevludin Stenaklic, on Flickr

 

[Designer]

Could be better.

 

[Emanuel M]

The problem with these is the light.
The first one casts shadows on the wall behind him and the chin's shadow is casted on the neck.
The second pic is too dark.

Cheers

 

[Derrel]

Mirnes has two very strong, prominent, distracting ear shadows, which attach to the wall behind him...and spoil the lighting effect, which is otherwise, fairly dramatic and striking for a hard-light type lighting effect. He is also placed rather low within the frame, which causes a visual imbalance, and make him look weak. The camera position is also a bit higher than his eyes, so he also appears to be looking up, again, a position of weakness.

The second shot, of the boy, is not all that engaging to me, probably because it's fairly dark, and it just looks like so many other direct-flash type shots.

Both also suffer from the big, black, dilated pupil effect, with very little eye color...another issue so often seen with speedlight portraiture: big, dilated eyeballs that remind us of heroin addicts...

 

[Mewle]

Ok, thank you guys on the replies. I will look into improving that. I only shot this with a basic pop up flash.