"Pose On Stool 2", 2010

Beautiful model!

Hi Robie, first let me preface this by saying that i`m not a nude photographer, my comments will come from my esthetic and general photographic background, so take them with a grain of salt.  You have a beautiful subject, and your lighting seems generally appropriate but not really outstanding or original.  There are a few things that bother me with this shot:  first the background is cluttered and busy, which distract from your subject.  The door handles for instance seem to be floating out of nowhere.  The second table is mostly cut and appears to have just been forgotten there. What is the reason to include it in the shot? does it contribute anything to your photographic statement? if so how? how can you bring that contribution out? The model's pose is a bit contrieved, the toes seem to be tensed to their breaking point, especially on her left foot.  Although in general she seems comfortable in front of the camera those little details betray some discomfort or uneasiness.  You should pay a bit more attention to these details and make sure your subject is comfortable and happy.  I hope you dont mind my direct but hopefully positive feed back on this.  Regards - michel

Cute model, nice smile and very lovely feet. Very good work Robie. The handle at the bottom to the left catches the eye but it 's a detail. Regards, Frédéric.

Robie,

It is interesting reading the comments of others.  We all seem to see different things.  I see this as having fine skin tones but almost everything else shows too much contrast.  Notice that the hair does not show texture, the white wall is over exposed to a fault and inspection of the histogram shows blocking at both ends of the lighting range.  I loaded the image into Adobe Raw (CS3) and clicked on the over and under exposure indicators which show overexposure in red and under exposure in blue.  That is very informative. Look at how much of your image is now showing as being blocked up.

I suggest you consult web articles on ETTR and HISTOGRAM which explain this in detail.

Jerry

Many thanks for the professional and detailed comment. I appreciate the insight and help.

TMAX400 film (in 6x7 formate), ambient light and no photoshopping leaves me often with work that could be done better. The negative or final print scan to be placed in the web portfolio is lacking any digital retouching (apart from dust removal).

I am striving to make the pose, negative exposure and final lab print as perfect as possible without any manipulation.