All natural light with only one light source from my window. I personally think this is my best work compared to my other work on this website. I was hoping to get some CC here.
I hope this falls into the category of portraiture but if not then I'm open for options to where I should post this.
I have really high expectations of myself and at the age of 19 I know I have a long way to go. I'm trying to get the most help as I can. I'm hoping someday one of my photos will be "Editor's Picks" or "Photo of the Day" even though it's out of my reach. I have to start somewhere.
Shot with the Canon 5D Mark II with the Canon 85mm f1.8
Thank you!
I apologize if there is a double post on this discussion.
I really do like it; it's subtle and soft with a good fade of light on the backdrop. For me personally, I've never been comfortable with cropping the tops of heads. It's not what I would call "bad" but it's something that I am never comfortable doing. Since you're also looking for honest opinions, as I look at it, I am not drawn to the face as I would like to be; the negative space isn't quite negative enough yet the subject isn't quite prominent enough for me. The same image on a pure black background would JUMP out at you but then again, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. :-) Keep it up, this is really good work!
David
www.aspect-photo.com
Thank you! Any opinions are welcomed. Again, I want to get as much CC or help as I can to get better!
I love it. the light is soft, the expression is good, the light fall off is nice so that you can still see her back. As David mentioned, if the background was darker, it would have brought more emphasis to her face. I don't think the background would need to be black, just darker. Overall, I think it is very good.
Thank you! Any suggestion on how to make the background darker? Should I have lowered the exposure, masked it, then brushed it in with a low opacity? Or maybe simply add more vignette?
The greatest disadvantage of using window light is that windows cannot be moved. One way you might have darkened the background without darkening the model is to flag part of the window. A dark shade or drape over the part of the window illuminating the background would be one way. If the model could have been moved away from the background while still being illuminated by the window would have decreased the background brightness.
Another way would have been to use a dark fabric as a backdrop.
While I use Lightroom for editing, I keep it to a minimum; mostly taking care of skin blemishes and minor exposure changes. My style is not using a lot of post-processing for the image, so I would not be of any help in that area.
I see, I'll keep that in mind for next time. The only down fall about this shoot was the fact that the room we were working in was really small. I would say she was maybe 1-2ft from the wall and about 3ft from the window. Then I was maybe 4ft away from her. So in this case because she was really close to the window, your advice of putting a cover or drape over the window would have been my best option.
Thank you very much!
I'm going to go against what David and Steve are saying here. I don't think you should darken the background, but instead lighten it. I like the mood of this shot and that can still convey with the light background. I feel like you're a bit underexposed on this and by bumping it up and adjusting the white balance you can make it look more "natural" as right now it has a feeling like you used strobes.
I did a quick, dirty edit on my phone to convey a bit what I mean. On top of that I would also reduce the vignetting in the corners as it's a bit distracting.
In regards to framing, I would have adjusted slightly as I'm drawn to her shoulder/arm first and find my eyes searching for her face.
I like the mood of the shot though, so good work.
Thanks David for taking the time to comment! I did however underexpose the shot on purpose. Reason for that is because I already had in mind of what kind of mood or atmosphere I wanted to go for. I didn't want to brighten it too much cause then it would not have been something I wanted. I would take your advice on adjusting the white balance. That's still something I have to practice with.
I agree with the arms and shoulders because that is more dominating than the face in this shot. I haven't really noticed it until you have mentioned that, thank you.
I will take your words for the vignette. I went a little overboard on that.
Overall I wanted to go for a more darker photo than brighter. But I will definitely remember your advices for future photoshoots, thank you!