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Christopher Hill's picture

Help! It keeps getting further from the thing in my head.

This was an attempt at a Leibovitz-inspired "scenic portrait". I didn't have the massive setup she uses. Just one speedlight to camera right.

I've edited this photo a dozen times and I feel like it keeps getting further and further from what I had in mind. What do y'all see in reguards to coloring, composure, lighting, etc... ?

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6 Comments

I think your greens are getting too dark? and maybe a tighter crop ? just some thoughts

Im still learning myself but something down this line? The branch nearest top left in the original photo pulls my attention more

I love the planning that obviously went into this shot. If I were editing it, I'd probably go with a radial filter on the subject, bringing up shadows, down blacks, and up highlights. The overall image is green, I'd probably end up desaturating and bringing it more into the bluer spectrum. Maybe a brush and highlight select foliage?
Composition wise, the sky is pretty distracting. Either cropping or a quick photoshop could lessen the eye pull that it has. Maybe a crop up from the bottom, more of a landscape ratio?

I hadn't considered the sky too much. I really appreciate the ideas! Gives me some tangible things to try. The show was actually super impromptu. This was a villa we were in for the week. I had a flash set up, and snapped this quickly on the way out the door to dinner, lol.

What is that white vertical thing next to the right-most column? The outfit she is wearing is almost the same tonality as the brickwork. She doesn't call attention to herself If she were wearing all white she would grab attention
Using colour and contrast to your advantage would improve this image.

The 2 biggest mistakes photographers make is that they shoot from too far back, and another one (you didn't do this) is that they turn the heads too far to the side. The pose is so far back, that all you see is black foreground. I would say, crop in then make a dup layer, lighten it, add saturation, and then mask it black, and selectively add some detail back in. Main thing is to crop closer for sure.