Anna-Maria

Casual portrait... Any critiques and comments would be greatly

appreciated!

She needs to lift her chin up, it makes her look fat. Also, her skirt is very low, almost at plumber status.

As a formal composition this is kind of interesting, but as a portrait it doesn't look like you are doing her any favors.

 

Composition: triangles and parallel lines. Interesting how the hair follows the straight line between head and left foot; the right thigh somewhat follows the curb or ledge; the right arm and right shin are more or less parallel, and the left arm parallels the left shin, even as the right hand parallels the right shin. The right arm lines up directly with the center line of the face. Needs a little less space to the left.

 

Ok. Portrait: Ouch. She looks uncomfortable and kind of hostile, or perhaps unhappy. The low skirt results in a large bulge of flesh around her hip; reminiscent, as another commenter put it, of a plumber. The lighting is harsh. The left hand looks awkward. The angle of her head makes her face look blocky. This should all be fairly obvious to you, as you have lots of good work in your portfolio. The reason I take the trouble to comment (besides the fact that you asked) is that I think this same pose would probably work as a nude (though I imagine it would be a challenge to accomplish in this location!). You wouldn't have the clothing to look unflattering, and you would have the fairly interesting body position. Perhaps with a slight alteration to the head position, and some different lighting, it could even be flattering.

 

So: my verdict is that this idea is worth working with, but it doesn't work yet.

Thanks for your comments, folks - much appreciated! Barry, special thanks to you for taking the time to write such a consistent comment.

 

While I do look for the general composition, I didn't get in the habit of looking how good the subject/model looks in my shots - usually I try to look at this, but sometimes I just get distracted, and I don't. Now, looking again at the image, pretty much all the points you've mentioned should have been, as you said, pretty obvious...

 

Regarding the lighting - the image was lit by the sun, ~2 hours before the sunset. I thought that should be the best time for sun-lit portraits... is there something else I missed?

 

 

You're right about the sun's light being more flattering around the beginning or the end of the day. I'm mainly thinking here about how directional the light is. It seems harsh, particularly in the face. Perhaps a reflector out of view to the left (held by one of your many assistants, of course) would help. But the more I think of it, the more I think what you need is a diffuse source, like the big softbox you must have in your studio. Or like you wish you had. Here, you're essentially dealing with point source, and it casts harsh shadows.

Got it... I guess I have to look into getting one of those difusion screens :-) ...