I think the B&W conversions are very good. The tones are nice without blocked-up blacks and smooth grays. One of the nice things about black and white is you can have some pretty seriously blown highlights and it doesn't hurt the image too badly.
I do, however, have issues with the composition in almost every shot:
1) She's too centered in the photo; crop off half of the space behind her
2) Again, too close to center and I wish her foot wasn't cropped off at the ankle
3) Foot cropped at the ankle; could use a little less headroom at the top
4) Not terrible, but whatever he is holding in his right hand makes it look like his right leg is bent awkwardly mid-thigh
5) Focus appears to be inside the restaurant and the scene is a little too dark
6) Again, too dark, but this is probably the best composition
7) You can crop off about half of the space above her head; the way you caught the smoke from mouth to nose makes it look like she has something solid sticking out of her mouth.
I think Phillip covered most of the critique and I would agree with his very helpful tips. I'm just going to add one more thing, in image number 6, the light bulb directly behind the woman's face is very distracting, you could certainly remove that light in post-process if you wanted to.
I think the B&W conversions are very good. The tones are nice without blocked-up blacks and smooth grays. One of the nice things about black and white is you can have some pretty seriously blown highlights and it doesn't hurt the image too badly.
I do, however, have issues with the composition in almost every shot:
1) She's too centered in the photo; crop off half of the space behind her
2) Again, too close to center and I wish her foot wasn't cropped off at the ankle
3) Foot cropped at the ankle; could use a little less headroom at the top
4) Not terrible, but whatever he is holding in his right hand makes it look like his right leg is bent awkwardly mid-thigh
5) Focus appears to be inside the restaurant and the scene is a little too dark
6) Again, too dark, but this is probably the best composition
7) You can crop off about half of the space above her head; the way you caught the smoke from mouth to nose makes it look like she has something solid sticking out of her mouth.
Thank you! those are a really nice pointers!.
Nice work Charles, keep them coming.
I think Phillip covered most of the critique and I would agree with his very helpful tips. I'm just going to add one more thing, in image number 6, the light bulb directly behind the woman's face is very distracting, you could certainly remove that light in post-process if you wanted to.