portrait 1st strike

first shoot 2010. thanks to unbelieveable tami.

critiques and comments are highly appreciated

A very good start of 2010. Excellent!

beautiful model and you have captured her so well

This is a really terrific portrait of a very beautiful woman.

 

However I find the crop to be problematic. There is a lot of empty space to her left and part of her hair and head are cut off. The image is very left heavy.

 

By switching to a vertical crop and eliminating a lot of that dead space it strengthens the composition measurably.

 

 

Stunning. At first inspection during the "rate a photo" slide show, I would have bet my best "Hassy" this was shot with Kodak Porta 160 and a Carl Zeiss lens. I personally like the square crop and 'heavy left' composition.

Stefan,

 

Some of my critique may seem to be picky. I try to point out everything that I notice.

 

Tami certainly is a beautiful girl. You have focused well on her eyes. She has excellent eye contact with the camera (viewer) and a very nice expression (I'm not sure I like her tooth peeking through, though). Her skin tone is very good. The background is nicely out of focus and she is mostly separated from it. I think she has applied her make-up very well (her lips look just a tad dry -- perhaps a fresh application of gloss would help?). The lighting is very nicely done.

 

Tami has good catch lights. They would look a little better if they were more on her irises, instead of so much on her pupils.

 

Scott certainly improved the composition with his crop, but it is still a bit left heavy. 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. I would move Tami more to her left. It wouldn't really be practical to crop the right side enough to balance the right and left sides of this photography. That being said, Scott's crop would certainly be acceptable.

 

Scott's crop also eliminates the annoying white horizontal bar in the background. The white square is still there which does draw attention away from Tami's face.

 

I would tone down the little hot spot (reflection) on her shoulder. It is barely there, but my eyes keep jumping to it.

 

Leaning on her left forearm and holding herself in that position has brought her shoulder forward and created some unflattering lines where her neck meets her shoulder. It also creates a rather unusual curve to her back and arm. It appears that she has to strain a bit to bring her head up into position.

 

I'm not too fond of her fingers popping up at the bottom of the frame.

 

I think I would make the whites of her eyes a bit more white. They look a little pink.

 

Your name is not part of the photograph. It belongs on the mat.

 

Nice shot,

 

Mark