portraits Face.JPG

Just wanted to ask your opinion on what I should do to improve this shot,

any ideas, reason I'm asking is that whenever I put up portraits & other

work and ask for a rating then am given usually a 4 & if I ask for a

comment I am lucky to get 1 these day's.

I take it that this must mean my work is getting worse and not as I

hoped 'improving' so I am asking what I could do to make my work above

just average......

Kind regards

Hugh Hill

Hi Hugh,

I'm a real amature and you really need feedback from a portrait specialist who knows all about poses and lighting plans. I've onjy ever done one real portrait.

For what it's worth, I would suggest less strong lighting from the current source and perhaps slightly more (reflected?) light from bottom right (under the chin).

Cheers,

Mike

Thank you for your honest insightful critique which I value,

more light under the chin and less harsh light on the face it iswill try to improve on the next ones.

Thanks for your time & patience I appreciate both.

Hugh Hill

I honestly can't find much on which to base a critique -- to my eye it's a nice shot.  I don't think I want to see much more of her neck -- why take my eye away from such a beautiful face?  Someone may comment on the catch light, the fact that there are two and that it "bleeds" over into the whites of her left eye; I don't know whether that might be considered a "problem."  I do think a different cap would be better, for the simple reason that the knit cap has a lot of loose hairs attached to it, and it just doesn't seem to fit the beauty of the model.

Thank you very much for your opinion and pleased that you like this image which may prompt me to upload some more.

Regards

Hugh Hill

Hugh, keep in mind that you are asking to be judged by people that really may or may not have any idea about what makes a photograph good. You also have not told them what you wanted your photograph to convey--a very important part of the critiquing process. Without knowledge of your intent a critic can only guess what it is you wish to or need to learn from the critique. Or worse yet--start spewing conventional wisdoms. Posting to a photo forum isn’t like taking your work to a mentor who you know and respect--one who can ask questions and discuss your work. Most people on photo forums are familiar with a set of “rules” which they hear regurgitated frequently enough to be convinced that they have some merit. Generally, they don’t. Emerson put it as well as can be said. To be a man, you must be a nonconformist and then the world will whip for your nonconformity. You can follow rules and make photographs acceptable to the rule bound—or you can make your own photographs. Your choice is to follow conventional wisdom and produce photographs that look like everyone else’s photographs or just to make photographs that say what you want to say about the subject matter. Technique is the sentence structure of the visual language of photography. Just like a word will mean one thing in one context and another thing in another context—so does technique. Let me make a suggestion. If you were to take a pen and paper and attempt to write out a description of this young woman, if you were to try to say in words how you see her, what you find important or interesting about her—how close would that written description be to the photograph you have presented? The closer the two are together the more successful your photograph.

Hugh, if I may add one more hint. Post some photographs to Pnet. Give the critic some indication of your general abilities, your photographic interests. Without seeing a portfolio I have no idea if a good photograph posted was a fluke, a lucky hit or a bad photograph was just an off day or a good indication of the photographers lack of ability. Generally as a critic I am turned off if the photographer is not willing to put themselves out there, to let me know who they are photographically. As such I seldom critique their photographs.

Hugh,

You have really done quite a nice job on this portrait. I will give you a couple things to consider.

The focus on her eyes and her skin tone are very good. Her make-up looks good. She has good eye contact with the camera (viewer). Her expression is not very expressive, but it is pleasant. You have created some nice shadows with your main light and they are filled in well. I don't see any problem with your lighting. The shadows add interest and help to create an illusion of depth within your photograph. More separation from the background would help with this illusion.

The background is nicely neutral, but if there are lines in the background I would prefer that they be vertical rather than sort of diagonal. She is separated from the background, but a backlight or a lighter background would have separated her even better.

You have some reflections in her eyes that are a bit annoying. One catchlight per eye is preferred. More white on each side of her eyes would help to make her eyes look more balanced.

Her right shoulder appears to be too light. I don't know if that is the tone of her sweater or some extraneous light falling on her, but it does draw attention away from her face.

The fuzzy hat looks nice, but you will always run into problems with light fibers that sort of stick out. I wouldn't call this a very big problem, but it is something to draw the viewer's attention.

If you want to crop into her head (which looks very good) you could crop more off the bottom. With a fairly close shot of the face it is usually a good idea to place the eyes about 1/3 to 3/8 of the way down from the top. If nothing else, this gives you a good starting point from which to subtly adjust your top and bottom composition to make it visually balanced. She is a little high in the frame.

Your subject should have more room in front of her than behind. This allows her to be facing into the picture, not out of it. 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 also have good left and right compositional balance. The tip of her nose doesn't have to be exactly centered, but this gives you a good starting point from which to subtly adjust your composition to make it visually balanced. This little rule almost always works well.

It is quite appropriate to place your name and the date the photograph was made, if you wish, on a mat surrounding your photograph. The copyright symbol and your web address and any other extraneous information would be better placed on the back of the photograph. You don't want anything to draw attention away from your subject.

Nice shot,

Mark

Hugh, your personal website is remarkable.  I was especially struck by your photographs of homeless people.  It's seldom I have a chance to view photographs of someone committed to the cause of social justice, and I'm glad to have found your link.

What can I say,

except thank you both very much for your thoughtful and well detailed explanations on 'Face' I have taken in both what you have said and will certainly do my best to learn from it.

I do have a portfolio here at P.N with just over 200 photos but for some reason for the past 4-5 months no one can access it.?

Many thanks

Hugh Hill

terrific shot.  lovely eyes.

the only thought that crosses my mind is to experiment with getting a little more separation from the background. 

one way to do that is assuming you had a flash of some kind firing from the front is to rig at least one small flash behind her aiming up towards from the ground or perhaps at waist height and mount that on an inexpensive optical trigger (20 bucks -hmm that is a ten year old Canadian price).  the light gives rim lighting and pops her out of the  background.  another option is to get that optically triggered flash above her head and shooting down from above frame edge.  you need a simplle manual flash that allows you to reduce power.  the trick is to make her pop out of the background without losing a natural look.

The camera makers have expensive master and slave flashes that trigger each other using sophisticated electronics.  What I describe above could cost as little as 50 bucks or less if you have some old small flash unit kicking around.

I have used to this to create some 3d lighting that really suggests the volume and mass of the subject, getting away from the flat cardboard cutout effect.

I remember your photos here from the past.  you do terrific work.