Hello everyone.
i`m a portrait photography newbie. i`m not really familiar with the different genres and categories of portrait images. Is this photo considered a fashion or headshot or beauty? What are the main differences between these categories?
What do you like and dislike of this photo?
Your honest feedback is really appreciated
nice retouched photo. the only thing i don't like is the fact that the subject is not separated from the background
Thanks for the feedback.
The Picture is very nice the only things i would do is selcet a better crop since the head is partialy cropped at the top and maybe lighten the image a bit since the colors seem to be very muted but other than that i really like this picture
Thanks. Would you please explain what do you mean by a better crop? Do you mean that I shouldn't crop her head or you mean something else?
The overall style I was going for was a low key image that's why it looks a bit dark.
Hi Adam,
What are you trying to sell? That's the question you have to ask yourself when doing a fashion shoot. This one is more a beauty shot than fashion to me. This isn't a low key shot either to me since she's almost uniformly lit all over, putting a model in front of a black backdrop isn't a low key.
I see the same problems than your portrait, too much saturation and no clear point of focus. I don't see an issue with the crop but
her arms and hand positions seems awkward to me.
Hope this helps,
Marc
thanks again.
Overall I don't mind the photo and in general I'd say you did a nice job with a good start. I wouldn't consider this a "beauty" shot, but her face and expression is so blank that it's hard to qualify it as a portrait (since blank expressions are usually more related to images where something is being sold). One thing I'd watch out for is shooting too high. This looks to me like you were either directly level with her eyes, or you were shooting from slightly above her eye level. Generally speaking it's better to shoot at eye level or below for portraits and most beauty.
One thing to think about is what is the point of the image - it's not her eyes, because we only see one of them pointed away from the camera; it could be the lips, but they are pretty dark and again we only see half of them; it could be her skin, but there's very little contrast in it and there's a lot of stuff happening around it taking attention away; it's not the jewelry, because that's not very prominently displayed or lit; and it's not the head wrap, because it wouldn't be cropped and it's in a lot of shadow.
For portraits, you're "selling" the subject and their personality. For beauty, you're "selling" either the glowing skin, the makeup, the hair, or the accessories. None of these look prominent enough in the image to make it clear what it's about. Also, I'd back off on the skin retouching by about 50%.
Hope this helps!
thanks for the in-depth explanation.
I agree with Marc, i can't figure out what you are selling. There's some ghosting around the edges that makes it look oddly out of focus for me.
If the lighting was maybe to your right I could believe it's about the ring and earring. If she turned her head more to you and looked in the camera, a portrait or maybe even about selling the scarf/turban thingy.
I am guessing the ghosting effect around the edges is what made Ekene say that it's not separated from the BG.
The only thing that pops out at first glance is her eye so maybe it's about contact lenses? :) :)
The blurred edges are due to a poor selection to remove the background. As far as I know, this is her natural eyes and she was not wearing a contact lens. She has amazing eyes, though, I did some retouching to enhance the colors and sharpness.