A Moment To Myself (Self-portrait)

Thanks for viewing and for your critiques/comments/ratings :)

Very good self portrait, your pose sets a nice series of diagonal lines, it's not easy doing a self portrait when your not there in the viewfinder to see what your doing. Lighting and exposer is also very nice, well done.

Tanni, of the three self portraits posted in the ALL folder that this time this is the only one that does not totally obscure the countenance of the person in the photograph. There are a number of things about this photograph that is interesting. Steve has already mentioned the interesting line of the arms and raised leg that is really very strong. The remainder of the photograph is relatively bland so all of the motion, all of the excitement of the image is in this strong geometric movement. Speaking of the remainder of the image, you have placed much of it in darkness—a favorite technique of mine, hiding what is unnecessary to the story of the photograph in blackness. A suggestion of trees and the bright path that you are following that doesn’t hint at which direction you will be traveling—into the darkness or even thought the viewer does not know the path to the lower right, possibly it goes away from the darkness. The look on your face is very determined, very strong—a person that is not deterred, not afraid regardless of the direction traveled—a very interesting statement. I would love to see the brightness of both the outfit and the bath to be toned down very slightly to put even more importance on the face, but that is not necessary to the success of the photograph.

Very contrasty, poor separation with subject and background.

I would like to hear your thoughts as to why the subject, as you say is poorly separated from the background,  to me it's the contrast (subject light,background dark) that makes the separation, please enlighten us a little.

Steve and Tannie, I cannot and do not speak for John. I am sure that each of us would process this image differently but here is my take.

There is a cast shadow possibly from a tree trunk on the left side of the figure that obscures the shape of the figure and particularly the left shoulder—I have lightened the shoulder to give the figure a more natural shape. Simply moving slightly to the right would have eliminated that problem. It is difficult to remedy after the fact.

The black hair is totally lost against the background as well as blending into the shadow on the tree. I have lightened the background enough to confirm that in the original capture there was separation which was lost in arkening the background. Lightening the background also showed that although I like blackness, there was really nothing terribly detracting in the background  that was “improved” by the extreme darkening—sometimes there is. Toning it down while leaving separation for the hair would have worked much better. Lightening the background would require going back to the original image and starting fresh because doing it after the fact unacceptably popped out the noise and artifacts. I gave up on separating the hair from the shadow on the tree. That may or may not be possible in the original.

Also, considering the deep darkness of the background the bright tree trunk, the bright green slope and the bright sidewalk, especially behind the cast shadow, IMO, needs to be toned down. I applied desaturation to the green slope and darkened it. I also darkened both the tree trunk in the background and the one Tanni is leaning against so that there is nothing that is secondary in the photograph that is bright enough to really grab attention away from the figure yet there is hint of detail that IMO adds interest or at least some texture and naturalness to the background. Lastly, I removed the green grass reflections from the white outfit.

Maybe you do not agree that all of these steps “improved” the image, maybe some do, some don’t. They are simply suggestions on another way to see the image technically that does not disturb the content and possibly strengthens the content which is what is really important about this or any photograph.

Steve and Gary make many good points about the appeal of this self-portrait.  Background seperation from important subject elements, such as hair and right arm, provides the viewer with more to appreciate without having to wonder about the meaning of the high contrast and heavy shadows.  A lower contrast allows us to see details in the shadows.  I had to clone some detail over her head to provide the sort of seperation that is my preference.  Ultimately, it is Tanni's choice to include or exclude details she feels are important---and for the rest of us to weigh in on the affect her efforts have on us.

Yes lightening the tones in the hair and the left shoulder does help to separate, Gary is right about that the image could have been processed differently from one person to the next, I think here we're really in the realm of subjectivity, as for the green reflected form the brightly sunlit grass I find it hard to tell if it's actually that or if the outfit really has this green in it, my experience with this phenomenon is that it usually leaves a more evened out color cast on the fabric and you can definately see the green on the skin, here I can't see any green on Tanni's face and portions of her outfit are pure white,  either that's the way the outfit is supposed to look or the green reflection is not even by means of different factors, I guess only Tanni knows.

Thank you all for viewing and for your detail feedback. The outfit I was wearing is in light green and off white in colors (not pure white as stated). The dark areas was intentionally done in this image to bring out the subject, angles and lighting. I am still new to portrait photography especially self-portrait. I sincerely wanted to thank you all for your detail feedback and will take that into consideration the next time by. Happy New Year 2020 to All :)