20160608-Candle Reading

The candlelight adds warmth and interest to the image. I like also the body language. 

Perhaps a crop on the right?

Nice portrait!

Kind Regards,

Rosario.

Brilliant light and vignette.  Excellent work, Dave.

Even though this picture is too simple and too 'nice' for my taste, I like it very much anyway. It's a comfortable pleasure to look at. (And I will say what every photographer knows -- "simple and 'nice'" are not easy to do well.)

Picking out four things that I think are especially good: first, and obviously, the greenish-bluish coloring on the side of the candle is key to sparking the picture's coloring. Then, I think that the texture of the sweater works really well with the overall smoothness of the rest of the picture. Next, I love her left hand (the one on my right; the darker one). It's 'natural'; it makes the pose echo to my own experience of reading like that. If I cover that hand so I can't see it, she looks too posed. And the last particular that I like is her right eyebrow (the one on my left); it just kills me. It's on center in every way, compositionally and meaningfully. Perfect.

I love the lighting of this image, it has an air of the ethereal about it. I also completely agree with you, Julie, about the hands, although on the whole I think the photographer has done a good job of capturing (or at least creating the illusion of) what looks like a very natural and unstaged moment.

I like the image for the mood it imparts. The subject's posture has some sort of a spontaneity to it that immediately catches attention. Those attentive tight lips raise the memory of the french new wave cinema? The warm lighting and the shallow DOF all work together harmoniously here. Well conceived and shot. The prosthetic eyelashes seem to be contradictory to the otherwise unkempt informal setting.

My major complaint however is with the candle. The candle itself looks really interesting, but there is a strange dark halo around the candle, plus the greenish light from the right which seems to be from a fluorescent light, and cannot be found anywhere else in the image (not on the right side of the subject which is completely dark). I agree this greenish tinge adds an element of interest to the image, but also makes the candle look artificial to me. Also the candle seems to be closer to the camera than the subject, yet is in complete focus. This goes against the shallow DOF that characterizes the rest of the scene. The eye tries to imagine the candle at the same plane as the subject, but figures it's not. That creates a visual confusion. Perhaps, if the front edge of the book did not show such a pronounced blur, the candle could have fit in more easily. All these issues are evident only when seen at close quarters though. The picture as a whole draws the viewer in.

It is a nice portrait and well handled. I don't love the left hand being so dark. Something feels off about that to me. There's also a strong hot spot on her shoulder which seems out of place in such a gentle photo and draws my attention and which might have been lessened in post.

I agree with Supriyo that what are likely some post processing artifacts and incongruities are evident.

Finally, the shadow of the candle on the back wall really moves me. It seems to echo her silent reading.

To me, the image has a gentle, organic feel - to the extent that I almost can sense the degree to which the subject appears relaxed. In my opinion, the words "nice" and "simple" don't necessarily tell the whole story inasmuch Dave probably took his time in planning and shooting the image.

First off, I have said this before, I wish the image would appear when critiquing, I have to do this from memory and if you remember, my memory is shot.
I like the shot for a few factors, low light and virtually no noise what so ever, nice.... The make up with the fake eye lashes is well done, hair as well and even the face resting on the hand, looks natural, Lord know I can never get a hand to look that natural in a portrait setting. The sweater coming off the shoulder, sexy.

The parts I feel need improvement is that silhouette in the back with the bulbous knob at the top, it may be the bed post, to me it is a distraction, I would take it out. The shoulder my be a bit hot but not a distraction for me. One other area is the left side of her hair, it blacks out with the background. Perhaps a fill card, just to show detail not only in that but to show a bit more of the left hand, instead of just 3 fingers.

Very nicely done, although I find it a little too perfect and hence more like a studio, commercial shot ("capture the available light with your [insert brand name here]") than a "real" scene. That shouldn't matter but it comes over as inauthentic and rather saccharin to me. Why would one read by candlelight, by choice? But I must agree that it is very well executed.

Really well done in the chromatic sense, which I imagine is not easy with such lighting, despite post treatment. However, I get a real sense of it being posed, and not just happened upon, which I think might have allow it somewhat more impact. It is interesting that a subject who does not know that she or he is being photographed often provides convincing very small details of that fact.
For what it is worth I made a picture recently of a gentleman sitting on his balcony in early morning light reading his newspaper with his coffee balanced on the railing. A shot from afar, before he realised I was there and introduced myself, is similar to but different from those I made with his permission after having talked with him, explaining my interest and gaining his trust. One can discern a different muscle tension in his arm holding his paper than what is perceived in the first image. My photos wre less original than Dave's, but raised the question of achieving the most natural view of the subject. The POW is however a very fine attempt at this difficult objective.

I don't know whether or not this was Dave's objective, a natural view. Some situations and people are happened upon. Some are posed. Neither, IMO, inherently has more impact. Plenty of unnatural things have great impact and interest and emotional intensity.

 

Furthermore, many happened upon situations don't seem that natural. When I shoot on the street candidly, I actually gravitate toward taking photos that have a staged feeling, where people seem to be but aren't posing, or where situations seem in some sense artificial. For me, those situations are very impactful in the sense of Shakespeare's "all the world's a stage."

 

It seems to be a good point to say that a given pose doesn't work or doesn't have the impact it might if handled differently. It seems to me a less good point to say a pose would be better if it weren't a pose. That, to me, would be kind of like saying a photo of a mountain would be better if it were a photo of a stream.

I guess many of us enjoy seeing both posed and natural images. When done well, each has its qualities in terms of a visual communication. I also think that some human shots are better done by posing, others not, depending upon the subject, the particular situation and what the photographer (and sometimes subject) is trying to convey, intentionally, or in cases where the approach is simply one of positioning of the photographer, arranging his visual tools, waiting and capturing the right moment. The present case, which is not a dramatic portrayal, is I believe a good example where the natural pose is a useful approach.

Precisely my point. I agree with you completely. This is not a dramatic photo and is a very good example where the natural pose comes to mind as the most useful approach. Which is just why I would search for alternatives.

 

I'm not saying Dave should approach it any differently. I'm just thinking out loud as to things that could be done that don't seem to present themselves as the natural result of the less dramatic, more serene scene we see before us.

 

As is, as I said, it's a nice photo, it is serene and pensive, and for me it's also a cliché. It is just what I would expect. Clichés can be very nicely done and be very rewarding to accomplish so well. But, when the naturalistic pose seems to so readily flow with what else is going on, I have this impulse to imagine a very forced pose that could work and that doesn't as readily come to mind. If I can use a more forced pose, in a sense, I'm using the beautifully lit and serene cliché to explore something more creative and more personal.

 

I'm throwing it out there as a possibility, not an insistence. I actually think it would be quite a bit harder to come up with an obvious and artificial pose here that would say something significant, but it's where I'd go because it would be more gratifying to me than getting a subject to act naturally, which seems the much more accepted and expected way of doing things.

Robin Smith have nailed the truth about this image, its perfections allude its

simplicity, I guess we are seeing the perfect final version only, and we might ask

about the time and efforts taken to produce this final version?

Though I do not want to walk in the direction of the first comment here, but I

must say the phrase the first comment described this image by being simple

and nice is completely unfair,at least in my opinion, cause the image is a lot more than that.

A superb photo!!! The lighting creates a wonderful mood. The setting creates marvelous ambiance. The model and her pose are perfect. This goes right into my favorites file. Excellent work!!

Very beautifully executed... Thanks for sharing...

AWESOME!

nice and soft shoot