Chrissy

I took this one the other evening.... twilight time. Fortunately my f2.8

lens allowed me the light to do so. No flash, no reflectors, handheld

(sucker for punishment). Hopefully I have learned from the PN

members who gave me advice on my first attempt..... watching for

shadows, stray hairs, catchlights in the eyes, even skin tones etc.

So how did I do with this attampt? Hopefully a little improvemennt!

Thanks for your time and constructive advice.

Regards

It's not easy to see a so lovely glance!

Grayham,

I have to admit, you sure do know the cute girls!

Your focus is very good. She has good eye contact with the camera (viewer). I like her expression. The background is nicely out of focus and Chrissy is well separated from it. Her make-up looks very good.

You could increase the exposure. Notice the the whites of her eyes are grayish rather than a nice white.

It appears that she has a slight yellow tint to her skin.

There are hairs near her left eye and on her left cheek, but not nearly as many as there were on the pretty little blonde you shot first.

You have very nice catchlights, but you have two in each eye. One per eye is preferred. The tiny pointy little blue ones near the center of her pupils are most likely caused by your camera's built-in flash. You probably used it as a fill light. That one should really be removed -- just leave the more pronounced catchlights that are mostly on her irises.

It would be good to lighten the dark circles under her eyes.

Your composition is not bad, but you have a merger with her hair and the top of the frame (they are just touching). It would be better to crop into her hair like you really mean to do it, or give her a little headroom.

You are close, but 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. By positioning the tip of her nose in the vertical center of the photograph you not only have her facing into the picture, but you have good left and right compositional balance. This little rule almost always works well. At least it gives you a good starting point from which to subtly adjust your composition to make it visually balanced.

Be careful of necklines and necklaces. The sides of her necklace chain form a "V" that attracts the viewer. The viewer's eyes will go to those lines and follow them down and out of the photograph because there is no place to stop. If you would back up a little (zoom out) you could include where that "V" or the sides of her chain come together. This would give the viewer's eyes that stopping point. You do not want the eyes of the viewer to leave the photograph.

I cropped for better composition, lightened the image and took out the extra tiny catchlights.

Nice shot,

Mark

Gorgeous shot! Very nice lighting...gotta love the fast lenses. :)

Once again, a great series of constructive comments, for which I thank you.

Mark, I am using your advice on other images (behind the scenes) and hopefully my future postings will receive shorter and shorter critiques from you as I get better.

The skin tone you adjusted, was my attempt at giving her a tan (smiles) and whilst I thought I'd done a reasonable job..... I see what you mean by a "yellowish" caste.

Your re-touch image looks great.

Thank you for your time

Regards 

Thanks for your visit.

Regards

Hi Grayham

Not to be a contrarian but I think that Mark's image goes a bit too far on skin tones and that it results in a rather harsh rendition. 

I agree with the suggestions on the eyes, catch lights etc. but that lovely softness that you captured went South.  I would try a very slight adjustment on the overall brightness/lcontrast on just the skin. 

........... for your kind comments and advice. If the truth be known, I had to do quite a bit of work on her face in terms of complextion as she is a typical teenager who wears no make-up and has pimples to boot. As I said earlier, I need to "brush" up on my tanning technique, but I thank you for recognising the softness I was trying to create from a rather stark original image.

Regards