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Portraits/Expressions

With Peter Hurley
Join Fstoppers' Portrait Photography Competition
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2.08 - "Needs Work" 

A regular girl, not a model or a proffesional or anything. This is also from the same session as my first photography in this competition. Where one of several girls showing up in a Tfp meeting through a Facebook photograpy group I was a member of some years ago This girl I think is very pretty, and she had done some amateur shots before.This is from the first portraits I did with dedicated lightning for studio. Well, at least one overhead umbrella and that was it. Luckily I got the kind of nonchalant expression I was looking for, when I saw this girl. And I was of course under no influense nor thinking of the worlds most famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci. As I have learned more editing since the shot, the photo is re edited the later days. I am curious to know the brutal truth of this type of photo and edit I have chosen.

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2 Comments

Keep in mind while looking for feedback on your images, that there are no absolute truths in photography... only subjective opinions.

I might like to see a rim light from behind the girl providing some separation of her hair from the background; other people might feel like that type of light detracts from the singular focus and attention given to the face. I like the smooth soft focus of her face; other people might prefer more texture and detail in her skin. Her eyes are dark and moody, but it fits with the image as a whole. Personally I feel like the shadows under the girl's nose and lower lip are a bit harsh, but other people like the contrasty light and hard edges rendered by a single light source. My point is that you've got good solid work, you're not going to please everyone, so find a style that pleases you and don't ask for approval.

That said... there's one thing I think you could fix in keeping with your style: the white sweater has a greenish color cast in the main area of the sweater, and a reddish cast in the sweater behind the hair on the left. The color cast in her sweater seems to detract from the monochromatic tones as a whole and color in her face. It's an easy fix in Photoshop.

Thank you Kunzelman for taking time to give important and detailed feedback. Your feedback is very valuable, and I will certainly change or remove the color cast in her sweater. I didn`t notice that before you mentioned it. That`s one of the reasons it is so important to get other eyes to look at your work. Better lightning and how to lighten is something I know more of today than this Tfp shoot I was part of several years ago. But I wanted to participate with those few portraits I got :) It`s strange, when I look at my image in lightroom, compared to on the fstopper site, it looks a little more colorful in lightroom. Not that monochromatic. Haven`t experienced that before.. Thank`s again Kunzelman.