Anna

[CLKunst]

I don't usually post client photos here. But I am so personally pleased with these I think I need my bubble burst. This is a Kenyan Dancer, Singer, Poet named Anna who I photographed yesterday at the Smithsonian Museum of African Art. These were taken with no flash at ISO 1600 and have been processed pretty heavily.

Comments and critiques welcome, suggestions cheerfully explored but please leave the editing to me.

[gahspidy]

Cindy, i love the moments and your compositions but personally I feel they are too blurred or noise reduced. they look smooth and soft like heavy noise reduction whereas I think gritty and grainy as they may have been at that ISO would be more natural and effective.
Just my personal take on it.

[CLKunst]

I understand what you mean Gary. Normally I would preserve as much of the details as I can and let the grain hang but these were so dark and so grainy it looked like she had a skin condition. But I thought her expressions in both were just too good to toss the shots entirely so I decided to "save" them. Perhaps I'll roll the filter back a few notches and reduce the impact a bit.
I used the Kodak Digital GEM airbrush filter which does a good job of preserving finer details while blotting out the noise. The fact that's it's been compressed to web size isn't helping either.

[Don Schaeffer]

Expressive combination of movement blur and softening. I think its interesting.

[freygr]

Great subject, and I did find them pleasing. There are too many ways to skin a cat but I feel you nailed it with these two photos.

[MB1]

I'd crop down from the top of the first one, I've never cared for extra nothing at the top of a portrait.

They look just too soft here, how are they enlarged?

[CLKunst]

Thanks for commenting Don, Frey & MB~
I appreciate your taking the time to look and respond. Actual shutter speed was 1/10 at f6.3. Anna has a wonderful swishy way of moving that I was really trying to capture. I thought these two caught and expressed that motion well.

They look just too soft here, how are they enlarged?

The focus is very soft but the details in her eyes on the first one and her eye, necklace and earrings on the second are much better defined at size. I am really aiming for a watercolor or painted feeling more than a "Photographic Document".

[MB1]

.... I am really aiming for a watercolor or painted feeling more than a "Photographic Document".

In that case you might try really opening up the exposure and going for a watercolor wash look. I've had quite good luck with that......