Vintage Soft Focus

Holy Cow Pa! Come on over her' to the screen Pa and take a

look at what our Boy is doing now! WoW, Ma!

Well Pa, I'am so glad it's not a NUDE!

Well Ma, you never know what that boy will do next.

Your right Pa.....it's your genes that did this, not

my side of the family. ;-)))))))))) v.b.

 

So soft and seductive... just gorgeous.

I do like the effect I think you're aiming at, but I don't think you're there. The eye in focus and the hair out, yes. But why is the corner of the mouth hard and the middle soft?

 

Aside from that, one of the virtues of techniques like this is abstraction. Here we don't see the bumps on the skin, or a lot of other things that might distract from the main idea. What we do see are light and overall form, and here you've made some quirky choices. You've not only lit up her neck, but modeled the rest of her face in an unusual way: the clearest thing is the crease of her nose. And, um, why is she choking herself?

does she look distressed? as for the quirky choices... I didn't want to lose the detail that defined her look. As soon as those elements are softened it loses any definition and just looks un controlled. I'm pretty sure in those old movie star pictures they've got dead sharp features with glowing skin. Why did I light the neck... I shot this on an airplane. The light is coming from the window, and I thought it looked interesting. So, it's not a studio shot, if it were, I'd probably done several things a bit different, as it is, it was just a lucky shot. Thanks for the quirky comments ;)

Hi,

 

The eye is a bit high and could probably do with a little crop horizontally from the maybe half way between the hair line and her eyebrow I think the shot losses a little in the bottom left, sure is soft. Great shot considering it was done in a plane.

 

Cheers

 

Mark

Just a couple comments. First, the fingers on her throat I would crop out, the depressions they make on her skin are distracting both in presentation and ideology. Secondly, I think the angle of her head is too extreme for this particular framing. I would recrop so that the line from her chin to her forehead went from corner to corner of the image. The effects are a personal taste thing and if you like them thats good enough for me. I like the way you are always shooting.

A little too soft for my taste (maybe you could sharpen the eyes a little) But, women tend to love these super soft focus shots & isn't that what is most important.

...they're her own, touching her neck, as she stretches it out. I understand that most people read it differently, and if I had posed this, I probably would have framed it vertically... but it was a grab, on a plane, and thanks to the feedback, I have some things I will watch for next time. BTW, Doug, if you wouldn't mind... send me the crop you were talking about... I couldn't get it to look right, just looked like a face with no context... nothing to ground it. Even though the fingers look like they might be choking her, the detail of the ear, fingers and hair frame the face, and give it a home ;) without them... it floats, but... please, show me how you think it would work, I'd like to see it.

Thanks for the input Doug ;) I think more important than cropping, is to note these items that are troublesome and apply them to future photographs. This was a grab shot, and a learning experience. And a whole lot of fun. Any other comments are welcome. Thanks again.

if the background was a little darker it would be a 9...

I'm not happy with the position of the eye, it's a little bit too high. but I like the effect of the selective soft focus. ;) Let me know what you think.

You have an intuitive sense for communicating a tactual content in many of your images. In my judgment alone the photo would be emotionless and unoriginal without the neck pressure...again I begin to transfer the feeling to my own neck and you did this with pinky and a half. Bravo...high marks for original composition and aesthetic transference. This grabs me! Just keep photographing and composing using your intuition...with your training and love of the seeing/creating you will trust it more and more...Maybe you will begin a movement and create a new word I will now call "Tactualism". (Tactual- definition 2. communicating or imparting the sensation of contact; arising from or due to touch.) WEBSTER