KMH 005

This strikes me as the type of shot that could accompany an article

featuring a person. Any thoughts? The continuing quest to improve my

portrait skills. General portraiture critiques welcome. Available light

was used.

It is a good pose but the focus seems to get a bit soft at the bottom of the photo. All of her arms and body should be sharp.

I like the softness on the face! Among all other!

PDE

Devon,

You have a very pretty friend. Her skin tone, lighting, and her catchlights are very good. I think the contrast and color saturation are also very good. 

You do want to make sure her eyes are in very good focus. Use a tripod whenever possible. I don't see a good reason to have any of her out of focus. An out of focus background is very nice and focuses attention on your subject. Parts of your subject out of focus will draw attention away from what is in focus. It is difficult to go wrong with having the entire subject in focus.

You don't want to crop any off the right side because you would be too close to her left elbow. I would add a little onto the left side. Your subject should have more room in front of her than behind. This allows her to be facing into the picture, not out of it. You want to compositionally balance the left and right sides of the photograph. The compositional "rule" for this suggests that you position the tip of the subject's nose in the vertical center of the photograph. By positioning the tip of her nose in the vertical center of the photograph you not only have her facing into the picture, but you have good left and right compositional balance. This little rule almost always works well.

You have her dressed as an executive and she appears to be in a nice office setting. This is quite appropriate. She has a pleasant and welcoming expression, but her arms are crossed. She is sending mixed signals. Crossed arms is a sign of impatience, distrust, disgust or even anger. Her expression just doesn't go with her body language, unless you want to portray her as the high-powered nasty female executive. With the combination of expression and crossed arms I think she is coming across as rather sardonic looking. I would have her uncross her arms. It might be best to have her look relaxed, yet still in control.

Her lipstick and blush look very good. I would like to see a little more eye make-up to help emphasize her eyes more -- even if it is just a little eyeliner under the eyes. As an executive you don't want her to overdo it, but her eyes could use a little help.

The flowers in the background add a bit of femininity to the portrait. She could be an executive in the fashion or beauty industry. Books would make her position seem a bit more powerful. Maps or perhaps a globe would imply that her job was of an international nature. The background is very important to consider. I'm not too sure about the red velvet chair. It could go along with the fashion of beauty angle, but it doesn't exactly raise her status up very high. Black or a rich brown leather might work better. Besides, the red does draw the viewer's attention away from her face.

The background is nicely out of focus and she is well separated from it, but the flowers do bother me a bit. My eyes keep leaving her face and go to the red chair or the flowers. It could be because the flowers are right next to her face or it could be because there are so many of them. Maybe they just seem rather busy to me -- too many flower shapes too close together.

You have given her a lot of headroom. This would work better if you were farther back showing more of the office area for some reason. Being this close to her, I would crop some off the top.

Yes, I think this type of shot would work very well as an editorial photograph.

Nice shot,

Mark

Mark, thanks for that very thorough critique.  That is possibly the most informative and educational critique I have ever received.  Definitely gives me a lot to think about and many ways to improve.

 

I think the mixed messages come in part from the fact that this shot was taken in a wedding studio.  Two friends were having their wedding photos done (in Korea they do this before the wedding and invite all their friends.) We shot this in the background with available light.  It's informative to me just how much you as a viewer can pick up on in the photo re the compromises that had to go into making this shot.