Hello everyone.
this is my first post in here and i`m very glad that I have joined this community. I am a portrait photography newbie. And this was my second portrait photoshoot. I need your overall feedback. What do you think of the exposure, posing and editing?
Thanks
Need your feedback (what do you like and dislike)
I like the way the light plays over her face and blouse. I find the catchlights in her eyes very distracting though, since her pupils are entirely covered by the catchlights of the (two softboxes?) you used. If you're much of a Photoshop user it might be an interesting experiment to see if you can restore her pupils. Really do like the feel of the light though.
Thanks for your useful feedback. I didn't use artificial light at all. It was only a big window and a reflector below her chest. That leads me to another question, what can I do to avoid this distracting/large catchlight.
Oh, I see. It's two windowpanes I must be seeing! On the avoidance side, I try to remember to slow down and look at the image on my phone to make sure the catchlights are good. I'm a hobbyist, so I haven't gone to the next step which would be to shoot tethered and have a nice big screen to look at.
I agree with what Musing Eye said...so that. Not sure I like the un-ironed look of her shirt. Her lips are beautiful, but they grab focus instead of the eyes...maybe because of what Musing said. maybe not a bad thing if you are selling lipstick. glad to see skin texture, nice. If I am really nitpicking I would have her hair off her other shoulder. Very nice.
Yes, indeed she has beautiful lips. Maybe if she were looking straight at the camera the attention would be more on her eyes/gaze. What do you think?
I wouldn't want to lose the feel of your intent though. Looking directly at the camera would feel free different, so it's all about what you wanted. I think the soft vs crisp blouse is the same. I think Joseph's could be a great shot, it's just a matter of what shot you (or he, or I) want.
Thanks a lot for your feedback. I used only natural window light. No strobes were used at all.
Hi Adam,
This is a nice portrait with potential of a pretty model. Thanks for sharing.
I think your catchlight problem comes from whitening her eyes too much and or too much saturation, her lips and eyes don't look natural at all. Look at her shirt, for a white shirt it has a lot of reddish and blue tints to it, caused by over saturation?
The pose of the model is very nice but more attention could be made to her hair and wrinkled shirt. She doesn't seem to have any emotion but it might be what you were looking for.
I don't see a clear point of focus but it might be because of a low res file?
Keep on shooting portraits, you're on the right track!
Marc
Hello Marc, I haven't added any extra saturation to the photo. But I think the problem is the cross-processing and color grading that I have applied, it has a reddish color. I should have reduced the effect.
I was focusing on her eyes, but I was shooting on a slow shutter speed and I didn't use a tripod, maybe this is the reason.
Thanks a lot for your feedback.
The quality of the light is beautiful, I love the dramatic falloff. I'd agree with what others are saying about the catchlight in the eyes and the hair on her shoulder, but what I see more than anything else is the color tone being off. For some reason it reads way too magenta to me, especially in the (wrinkly) shirt. That could be because you either added magenta in post, or more likely because it's window light, there was already a lot of blue in the mix and that combined with whatever you did to make the overall look very magenta.
For what it's worth, I would first strip out the blue in a hue/sat layer and then reduce the opacity of that to bring some of it back so the shirt didn't look yellow. And mask out the eyes, of course. Then add the color toning back on top of that.
Hope this helps.
Thanks, Sennia
I have added a reddish color grading and that's the reason why the shirts look red to magenta. Of course, this was my first time editing and adding color grading, and i`m not sure if I did it right or even I overdid it. I understand that one solution to avoid this problem is to mask out in Ps the effect from the white shirt. So that the effect will be applied everywhere except the shirt.
For example in the below photo, the shirt is supposed to look white, but it doesn't! Is this due to the reason that a cross-processing/ color grading filter was applied, or is it only my screen?