Sudatta | Englewood, CO | July, 2015

Please Critique. Thanks for your time for viewing, rating and comment. All the best.

Regards,

Somnath

The direct gaze of your subject, Sudatta, gives this portrait a clear sense of presence.  She looks intelligent and an interesting person, as well as attractive.  Her stance and clothing, and the setting, are informal, casual and relaxed, which gives this a comfortable feeling.  If she is your wife, or someone close to you, this is a photo you will probably want to keep around for a long time, and it may take on greater meaning the longer you have it.

This photo is well illuminated, the shadows sufficient to provide a sense of dimensionality without being harsh. It makes good use of the focal length of the lens, close enough to fill most of the frame with her image and provide some detail, but far enough away to afford a very natural sense of perspective.

This photo is good (indeed, it would require real effort to take a bad photo of someone who looks like this), and I have no criticisms to offer, but please allow me to suggest some things you might consider experimenting with in future photos, to see whether you like the results:

• For a waist-up or head-and-shoulders portrait emphasizing her face, either move closer to your subject, or use a lens with a somewhat longer focal length.
• Try using a "rule of thirds" approach to put her face about one-third of the way from one edge or the other, rather than in the middle, and about one-third of the way down from the top of the frame.  This may provide a slightly more dynamic feel than a photo with the subject squarely in the middle of the frame.
• For a portrait emphasizing the profile of her face, try asking her to stand with her shoulders and face at an angle to the camera, rather than facing directly head-on toward the camera, and to turn her eyes rather than her face or shoulders toward the camera.
• Try asking her to stand with her body facing partly away from you, and looking back over her shoulder at you.
• If you are shooting in the same location, shift the composition of the photo a bit to the left, so that most of what you see around her is plain wall or curtain in the background, rather than tiles or other things in the same plane of focus as her face, which might tend to draw attention away from her face.  Compose so that you exclude possible distractions.
• If your camera has an aperture-priority setting, or if you can set the exposure manually, try setting the lens to maximum aperture (for this lens, f/1.8), or just a stop or two down from maximum aperture (for this lens, f/2.8 or f/4).  Adjust the ISO setting as necessary to get proper exposure at that aperture with a shutter speed of at least 1/125.  If you can switch your lens to manual focus,  get closer to your subject, and focus on her eyes (or, if you can't get them both in focus at the same time, on the eye nearer to the camera).  Since a lens has shallower depth of field at larger apertures, this will keep her eyes in sharp focus while leaving the background behind her out of focus.  The purpose is to draw the viewer's attention to her face, particularly her eyes, and away from the background, giving the photo a greater sense of dimensionality and presence.
• This photo has a light background providing good, clear tonal separation between her hair and what is behind her.  If you take future pictures of her against a dark background providing less tonal separation, try placing a light behind her (but not within the picture) to put some highlights in the edges of her hair and make it stand out from the background.

An additional suggestion, which doesn't involve technique but may be worth keeping in mind:  If your subject is your wife, a member of your immediate family, or a close friend, rather than a professional model, keep your photo sessions relatively brief, and don't try too many things at once.  She may not find posing as interesting as you find taking pictures.  You want her to remain willing to pose for more photos in the future, rather than getting so annoyed with the process that she prefers to avoid it.

Hi Peter,

First of all sorry for replying late. Thanks a lot for visiting. I can't thank you enough for such wonderful suggestions. I will definitely keep then in mind. 

All the best.

Regards,

Somnath