andrew_laverghetta1

Hi Krystle,

This is my third critique here for you, but I'm not the anon person that called your photos cheezy.

I do agree with much of what was said. Be careful when using selective coloring. It looks like you hit the bright red shoes, but also got part of the tub colorized too. The shoes do take attention away from the model and the tattoos, as well, the tub and the wall are also competing for attention because they're brighter than the model. Try again not to photograph at the 18mm end of the lens. Crop a little tighter while you're taking the photo and don't just do it in post processing. It looks like you're using Photoshop CS5?

I also notice a lot of your shots are taken at roughly the same settings. When you're outside, you probably won't need to use flash. Check out some tutorials here on photo.net learn a little more about exposure. It'll open a world of possibilities. Also, find somebody whose brain you can pick about different things.

I noticed the other post before this one using your selective color as compared to full color. I actually want to say that since her tattoos don't have a whole lot of color in them, black and white wouldn't be bad, just more focused on the actual tattoos.

The on camera flash suggests that this photo was taken vertically, in portrait orientation, and then cropped. This was a wise choice but again, stay away from on-camera flash unless you can bounce it from somewhere.

As for this specific photo, it looks a little dark and technically, I feel it should be a bit brighter. It also seems like your model is trying to show off her tattoos on her arm. Maybe there's a way to make this less obvious?

Looking at this, I can't really see to much of the HDR you're mentioning. Usually, HDR is made up of 3-5 or more photographs ranging from very underexposed to very overexposed. This gives you quite a bit of definition in the shadows, and in the highlights as well. The sky isn't blown out, which is good. These photos actually look much better than the biker and bathtub and tattoo photos I've seen here and I suspect it's mostly because of the lighting. That being said, you should try to get away as fast as you can from using on-camera flash. It's usually very unflattering, especially like in your bathtub and tattoo photos. Also, when you're just photographing a person, try to stay above 35mm on your lens. Zoom in as far as you can with your lens and then use your feet to get more of the shoot in the frame. 18mm on the lens, wide angle, distorts figures.