Trying out some home portrature. How's my lighting?

I'm fairly new at this so be easy on me. I tried to do some home lighting

techniques with what I got (just normal house lights), since I don't have any

studio strobes.

 

Please tell me how this photo looks. Nevermind my cat, I was making all sorts

of wierd noises so he just gave me that "look".

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jhophoto/1088612153/

BTW, please respond/comment/critique here, not as a comment to previous link. Thanks!

I think that's worked pretty well. Ddi you try playing with the white balance at all in your software? It might be worth a go just to whiten the whites a little. What would have been interesting would have been to see a shot with just the camera mounted flash, then with the lamp at the side and then with the ceiling light so you could see the difference each made.

Thanks for the reply Pete. I didn't really play with the white balance, but I can certainly do that. It does look a little yellow.

 

Adjusted it a little. How's this?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jhophoto/1090475964/

Much better! It's very nice...

James, yep - much better now. Good going.

BTW, the cat looks cool - made the kids laugh :)

I'm curious, what is the wattage of the lights you are using? Are they incandescent? How far away from the subject are they? At what level (height)? Are you using an umbrella or softbox? <br>

As for the photo, it looks ok, nothing special or "studio-like" about it. Looks to my amateur eye like a plain shot in a natural home-lighting environment...