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Bruce Edwards's picture

BRAE

portrait in black and white
ambient light

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14 Comments

Her face seems overly bright, and the rest of the image seems under. Maybe go back and tweak the exposure and contrast a bit?

thanks for the comment PF. I appreciate you taking the time to look and comment.

Love the tonality!

thanks Pushan.

To be honest, it has been a couple of weeks since I calibrated but she looks great to me. I wonder if the problem Prefers Film has, is one of geography. The norther complexion is typically much paler than those for warmer locations, which may be the issue. I am from northern UK and she looks perfect to me. Although the background is quite dark, too dark by a small margin perhaps. She is obviously in a reasonable amount of light, judging by the dilation of her eyes, and she is radiant, which works so well with the lovely smile and her classic hair cut. I find the large triangular structure in the background a bit distracting. A more natural and softer shape, from some trees for instance, or perhaps something more recognisable but I can't figure out what the triangle is and that maybe the problem. The attached crop also addresses the triangle, although in a traditional square format. That is not to say I dislike the aspect ratio of your picture, I do like it, just the triangle in the left space is bugging/distracting me.

Good job and I'll bet she loves it.

good morning and thanks for the comment Ian. I very much appreciate all insights.
The triangular shape (to spoil the mystery) is in fact a pillow propped against the wall. In the original colour version of the shot I was trying to introduce a 'splash' of colour and shape to break up the image a bit. In the end I found the colours to be too much in contrast with the rest of the shot.
I've always been a fan of square crops and have exhibited many portraits framed just like you've done here. Thanks for taking some time to work with it.
cheers from Vancouver.

I have now plugged in for the first time my new Eizo monitor, warmed it up, set it to sRGB and calibrated it. As I suspected, she looks perfect. As we have all noted, the background is dark, in my view just as mentioned earlier marginally too dark but only really on the right side, where her hair and the background are not separated, apart from the highligts, of course. She looks fabulous, well done.

Thanks again Ian.

Love it! Im a fan of the background being darker than the face is exposed. And good job making those eyes look nice and sharp!

thank you Harrison. For me, these shots are 'all about the eyes'.
cheers

I think everything technical has been covered, but I just wanted to take a moment to remark at how breathtakingly beautiful your subject is. Perfect (and I don't use that term lightly) smile and very few women pull off the big curls '50s look. A fantastic portrait of a true all-American beauty. Excellent work.
And personally, I'm a fan of the underexposed background as long as there's no context behind her being lost.

thank you Fumi for your kind words and I'll definitely pass them along to Brittnie (my subject). I appreciate you taking the time to look and share your thoughts.
cheers.

Nice

Nice expression! Love it