Under the boardwalk

First portrait shoot (amateur). Shot a roll of NPS 160 between 9:30

am and 10:30 am. The light had become too strong so we tried a few

shots under a walkway. What could be improved in this photo?

All in all this is a nice picture. The light is beautiful, the model too and the smile on her face pours some life into the picture. However, there are things that can be improved. Every good picture has three basic components: It's well composed, technically it's good and it's interesting. While this picture is technically good as well as interesting the composition would have been improved if you have included her left shoulder in the picture because the picture looks a bit stiff and the model apperas to be "pushing" her way into the frame.

This is the best out of the bunch by far. I like the cropping. The lighting is very nice. The eyes really sparkle because of the reflector. Great smile. The way the hair is blowing off to the side and filling the frame is nice. The hair could be neater but it's hard to get neat and windblown at the same time. Also the eyes look a little squinty.

 

Personally I can't stand the digital alterations to the other shots. The really soft one... is way to soft. Beautiful women generally don't need a lot of diffusion. The right lighting is all that's necassary. When I see digital editing to that degree it either has to work and look natural or it looks like you are making up for a bad picture. Just my thoughts.

 

Thank you all for the feedback. I'll just have to keep shooting until I get it right :).

Ralph, I like it.

Good start. :).

Below is a little help i did to your picture.

1) crop it - it becomes more powerful

2) sharpen it - maybe your picture was ok, but scanning blurred it

 

-- i used Photoshop to "Unsharp 100% radius 2.0 pixels, threshold 3 levels" it and crop it.

- Robert