dougityb

Lannie, thanks. I'm not completely happy with the reflection, so a little more work is not out of the question.  :-)  thanks again.

beautiful in so many ways:  the light.  the pose.  the dark background.  the bride, the dress and her flowers.   Super work. 

Michael, I think this looks fine, too. Although I like these neutral tones better than the purple one, I guess you could try to fuss with the color some more, if that's what's bothering you: desaturating and changing some of the hues to try and get what you're after. The wider/tighter composition issue: wider works if there's something else in the composition, but here you have steps and more steps.  So, I like the vines, having  read on the other one that someone liked that you cropped them. You might also try a reshoot with a gel on the flash, orange maybe, for one of the spots.  Regarding your location power issue, check this out:  http://www.white-lightning.com/VIIsystem.html

yes, I'm definitely not finished. By negative,  my daughter meant the distortions made her face look evil, even demonic, and she suggested I use different types of manipulations on her body than on her face. Blurring, for example, as opposed to all the twists and ballooning. 

Michael, in case  you haven't noticed, your feedback is all I've got!  :-P

Seriously, it's good to hear what you're seeing. 

I don't mind her being fat, that's part of the distortion many girls experience with their self-image.  I see what you mean about the blur requiring more sharpness from the model, but that may be because I was hasty.  I might need to use a different type of blur.  Maybe I blurred it too much?  My daughter suggested I keep the face in the mirror more realistic, pointing out that the face in the the above version had a negative feel to it. 

Michael, how's this: 

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=11756750

Not 100% finished, mind you. 

Michael, Thanks. What didn't work, what I was thinking of when I wrote that, was mostly in regard to the lighting I wanted to use, and the posing/composition.  I failed at getting the electronic flash to do what I wanted, and so I switched to using available light after about 20 or 30 exposures.  By then, I was also disappointed with the horizontalness, which included the mirror, so I switched to the vertical format after a few shots, focusing on the figure alone.  In editing, the vertical images seemed the best, and I barely looked at any of the horizontals, mostly because the of the lighting problems.  After your comment regarding the possibilities of the horizontal, I went and looked at them closer, and decided that this one was actually ok.  I scrinted it quickly, taking about 30-45 minutes, as opposed to the couple hours on the verticals.  So, Yes, I will go back and soften the background and otherwise repair what a good photographer would have caught in camera.  You're right about the blurring. I need to make the distortions less negative.  I don't have any issue with the headroom, so will probably leave that as it is.

reposted and thrown into the ratings mill: 

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=11752643

Michael!  I take it back.  I took one of the horizontals and smithed it into my Psyche project.  It's in the same folder here.  (one for critique forum, one for ratings forum)

The second in my psyche series. Actually, it's the 4th; I'm still

waiting to do #2 and #3, but this opportunity presented itself and I

took it. The image in the mirror was distorted in Adobe Photoshop.

Michael, the exposure was 1/40 sec, f/5.  Lens was  a zoom, set at 56 mm.  The depth of field was pretty deep, so I softened in photoshop. I wish I'd used a longer lens so it would have been soft naturally, but I think I would have been standing in a creek if I had, and also, I didn't think of it.  Creek or not, in baseball parlance that would be called an error.   Also, I started out with a horizontal concept, but this worked out better.  In response to your question, maybe I can find one worth a few minutes of finishing to show you.  I actually had to toss my original idea because I couldn't quite get it to work. Long story. 

Well, not too long, but not really worth going into. 

Your changes look good, Jerry, but in my opinion the best way to improve this shot is to put her in front of the camera again.  Darn it.  (not)

thanks for the commentary.  Michael, I believe I fixed that strap (photoshop) since posting this.  It wasn't easy.  the light on the right is actually behind her, in the water.  The key light is just a bit to camera left. 

I agree, the light could be a little brighter on the figure. 

Thanks Lannie. It was a blatant ripoff! 

Pierre and Doug, thanks for your comments.  

Michael, your layering idea is a good one. I hadn't thought of it, probably because I was not interested in making any kind of references to ghosts.  I wanted the picture to be more about the living, or being alive, and not so much about the dead. 

Thought I'd take a picture of the white dress I bought earlier this

morning. Couldn't find a model so I used a tombstone.

hmmm, I kind of missed this picture.  I like it.  Thanks CG.  Right, in many cases, backgrounds are the beginning to every picture. 

actually, I was able to  successfully photoshop the sun as per my original question.

Steve: Damn shadow.

CG: Damn lens distortion