Megan is a 23 year old woman who wanted to take control of her life and in doing so discovered MMA. She does not compete, but she does spar with military personnel as her significant other is a member of the armed forces.
Photographed using 600Ws strobe into reflective 42" parabolic with diffuser and HSS
Canon 5D MkIII - Pancake 40mm or 70-200 f/4.0 non IS
ISO 250 Shutter:1/2000 f/3.2
This is my first post to the group, and feedback would be appreciated.
Hi there, welcome! I like the green background, and the story is awesome. You might want to be careful of the angle and crop in some of these; in the first one, the top of her head is cut off and her legs are cut off below the knees which is a bit weird. I think the second image is the strongest of the bunch, but again, I'd prefer to see either the entire leg and foot or crop it in closer.
Some of the lighting and coloring is a little weird; her face looks more red/magenta and her arm looks really yellow in the first two pictures.. I can appreciate the grittiness of the images and the story, but it looks like maybe (I don't know for sure) the clarity slider was pushed just a little too far? The third image looks like a photo of the furniture and junk with a girl in the background; more light on her, and less on whatever that is in the foreground, would work better.
The last image is a really nice portrait (normally I prefer light to not be coming from below for portraits but in this case it doesn't look too bad); the only thing I'd do is reduce the highlight just a bit as it's starting to look blown out. HSS can be cool but I'm not sure it was entirely needed here, the angle of your light source can do a lot and the model isn't in motion so it's kind of a moot point.
You did a nice job capturing an interesting story. Hope this helps.
Thanks I appreciate the comments.. The color is partially because I did them on an uncalibrated laptop, but I was also pushing the clarity and texture a but to give it a more gritty feeling.
Personally I have less issue with cutting off the very top of the head, but the knees were something I simply missed. Her left leg was extended to the point I was gonna be cutting it off somewhere and I wanted the focus to be on the intensity that she goes through for as simple an act as applying tape.
The third photo actually was in my mind meant to be that way (Sometimes we are to intimate with our product, and dont realize how someone else would see it, but the idea was to show how she generally trains where she can. In this case it is in her parents garage on Mothers day. The green drape is actually a green screen I was using for some other shots I was looking at compositing with her.)
Lastly the HSS was mostly to get the background blacked out as much as possible in camera, which I have been trying to do more and more. Every shoot for me is a series of experiments all tied together.
All said, Nothing I said is an excuse, just a bit more background. I have some important takeaways from your comments. I will be working on putting them into practice. and if possible I may repost the corrected images once completed to this thread.
Thanks