any CC over this portrait. wind was up and it caught her hair nicely. this was actually candid i was not prepared to shoot. the wind came thru and blew the hair and i caught it. she was actually resting between shots this is why her head is down. CC please much appreciated. give it to me straight Ian!
Carrio, if you mean me, I alway give it to people straight, constructively I hope, but straight.
The highlights in her hair seem to be pretty much correctly exposed, bright but not quite cooked to death, a good thing and often they are burned out through over exposure. The blowing wind has caused some life in the hair, moving it around. This will alway be a rather hit and miss exercise and her hair looks OK, not amazing but OK.
I accept she is not posing, being off duty for a moment. So she does not look her best, I'd guess. If she were posing then perhaps it would be better with a smile or some other expression, we'll never know.
Lens flair; perhaps in colour it would have looked better than it does here in monochrome. It looks OK just not great. The flair I find most distracting is the bright white on her chest. In colour it may look much more attractive, I have no way of knowing.
the depth of field is very well judged, I'd say, as she is essentially all sharp but the background is way out of focus. I am not saying one needs to have the entire model pin sharp but nor is it a bad thing. Rather I am saying despite you have stopped down to keep her all in focus you have not over done it, thus allowing the background to be very soft.
Lighting; This is something I mentioned very recently to another photographer who was using daylight with fill-in. In his case apparently he used reflectors here I am not sure if you have also used a reflector or flash but it does not matter. The point I made to him and I make to you is that if you put your fill-in source (reflector or light) on the same side as the sun, which sounds daft and is counter intuitive, then the result looks natural. In this case your sunlight is behind and left so your fill-in should come from the front left. Why you may well ask. Because here you have done it the obvious way opposite to my suggested method, so front right and your shaddow is going towards the sun, which is the main light. Also the side of her face most away from the sun is the brightest side, which are both un-natural effects. My way has the shaddow falling away from the sun and her face on the right of our picture darker than the side nearest the sun, these both look more natural with the added advantage of better 3D modelling.
I hope that was not too straight Carrio. More importantly, I hope you found it useful and learned something from me. Otherwise I am wasting a lot of time on these critiques when I should be in bed and you are not gaining from my 40 years invested in my skills and knowledge. In short I hope my critiques are worth at least what you pay for it. All the best mate.
Ian well said. i hope you dont think that i am wasting your knowledge. i came to this community with the hopes of gaining experience thru others endeavors and gaining honest and straight forward critique. i applaud your 40 years and i hope that the knowledge that you have will continue to be spread about the photography community. i never thought to add a reflector or fill source on the same side as the light source seems weird. but i will def have to try it. yes i agree as well on the pose. yes it was not a very good and flattering pose but the composition to me was well worth the shot. some time i take photos even if they are bad to save a particular composition so when the proper time comes ill have a reference of what i can possibly look like. this shoot was a birthday shoot for a very good friend of mine. i really thank you all for taking the time out to comment or CC my photos it helps so much with my self confidence and growth. ill drop a couple others from that shoot below
Here's a few I did in color for that shoot I don't want to overload you all!
If I thought you were wasting my time I would not bother. These colour shots are very nice. I bet she loves them. The use of colour works so well, apart from the red shoes, bare foot would have been better, so our eyes stay on her face rather than being distracted by the impact of the powerful red. But the autumn coours and the greens of nature work very well with her hair colour and the top she is wearing. Fnally she is smiling/pulling an expression and wow, nice work.
thanks again Ian there were more shots below. hit the show more there are some with out shoes! not sure if you saw those
I saw 3 shots. Was that the lot?
yes the 3 color shots. didnt know if u saw all.
Good.