What could I have done better

[moshepupkin]

So... how would you improve these pictures?

 

[sscarmack]

While I like this shot and I probably wouldn't of did anything different, it feels very "snapshotty" and just another shot. Nothing says wow or holy cow.

What could you do different? If I knew that I'd be rich

 

[manaheim]

Taken her out for a very nice meal afterwards?

*cough*

This may sound odd, but I think you could have used some off-camera lighting. There's obviously a lot of sun there, but that takes the lighting very much out of your hands and leaves you at the mercy of that big ball of flame.

You also could have done it not in the middle of the day. I think it would have helped even more... given you some dramatic lighting on the horizon, possibly... allowed your flashes/lighting to do even more interesting things, and also would have helped the poor girl not be so hot (and therefore not so glistening).

The poses could use a little help, I think, but I don't have a lot of experience with posing people, so I can't speak too much to it unfortunately.

 

[binga63]

Also if you pop the hood show the engine....

 

[Designer]

I doubt if anyone can improve these, but I have some suggestions for trying it again.

Time of day/lighting issues: Find a way to get better light. Either very early or near the end of the day will give you better light. Use your best artistic eye to consider where the light is coming from, and position the car accordingly.

Background: Find a better place without distracting elements in the area.

Lens: You shot this with a wide-angle lens. This has emphasized the near front corner of the car in a way that is not pleasing to the eye. The huge-looking fender and bumper (all the same color, too) just takes over the shot and detracts from the model. The idea of the model is to enhance the car, but this huge red front is not working. Use a longer lens (or zoom to telephoto) and back up accordingly.

Pose: The right front corner of the car (as mentioned above) is perhaps not the best feature of this car. Try different angles by re-positioning the car to show other parts of the car. Try some shots with a slightly higher camera position, and then try some shots of close-up details. Mix it up a little and there will be a few shots that work.

Model: First pose (standing) is fine, but asking her to sit on the ground is not working. If the model is in the shot, make her a more prominent component of your composition. IOW: don't frame so wide. That extra space behind the car is doing nothing for your composition, and being so wide makes the model take up much less area of the photograph. Also, she should smile.

 

[moshepupkin]

Right, it does seem a bit "me too", but in a way this was the idea - to have the nicest shot possible of my girlfriend, no more, no less. Of course I would have preferred to do something more interesting, but this was never meant to be an artistic photography.

This was done in the afternoon, but I indeed underestimated how it would be, so I agree - shooting this 1-2 hours later would have been better.

I tried to get a nice composition which shows the engine, but nothing good came out of this attempt.

 

[ChrisKostner]

I would get rid of some disturbing things with photoshop or the like: The power pole, some houses or buildings on the horizon.
Her skin glistens a bit too much for my taste in the very hard sunlight.

 

[rexbobcat]

Shooting at a different time of day; using some flash to really bring out the sheen of the car and the beauty of the model against the background since these photos have a lot of DoF and everything appears to be in focus pretty much.

The lighting as-is is very kind of sterile/blah.

 

[KmH]

As mentioned the light is pretty harsh and there are a lot of areas of her skin that are shiny, making it seem like she was hot and sweaty.
Having the car hood up adds a distraction that draws the eye away from her.

Do you want her to be the main subject, the car, or the background?

If you want her to be the main subject, get closer and fill the frame with her while including just part of the car and use selective focus so any background in the shot is blurred. With that in mind, the shot of her standing and leaning on the car would be shot with a camera rotated to the vertical (portrait) frame format and the camera perspective would be higher and just below her eye level.

 

[ChrisKostner]

I took the liberty to grab your picture and tried something out:


I got rid of the power pole and cropped it a bit. Took some noise out of the sky and darkened it a bit (just my taste).
Whats not good is that the tree seems to be growing out of the car. I would have parked it a couple of yards away from that spot and make sure that nothing protrudes from out of the car or the model.
She seems to be squinting in the hard sunlight, maybe late afternoon or close before sunset would be better for the light.

Checking your pic in Lightroom made me wonder: Why ISO 400 and f18? With that much light around you would have been better off with ISO 100 and f8. Otherwise you wind up with lots of noise in the picture like you got. Don't know about your equipment, did you use a tripod?

Again, just my 2cents
Chris

 

[DiskoJoe]

Thats still not any better. This pic was taken at a really bad time of day. Location is pretty boring. You made the model look awfully greasy too. Thats three strikes, youre out.