First Actual Portrait Attempt

[rylan]

heres a shot from prom 2008 in sussex NB canada
of my friend and his date
shot with my 50mm
please let me know what you think about this one!

[Alison]

Good composition. Love the textures on the tree and the dof.
It's a shame his hand isn't placed on her waist a little more and that her arm wasn't hanging so lifeless. Just a little bend to the elbow would have helped that.
I feel the colours need lifting a little more. Maybe with some curves, levels, contrast and saturation.
Other than that it's pretty good actually.

[rylan]

wicked thanks alot Alison!, well once i get home ill play with the levels,curves and saturation and everything! and then ill post it up as well

they just wanted a quick shot so they yelled my name and i ran over and took a shot haha

[Kajuah]

I'd lose the vingette effect but it's a nice shot, too bad about the hand, be nice if it wasn't too centered too but overall nicely exposed and calibrated

[gahspidy]

It is quite nice and I think Alison summed it up very well. Needs more punch and illumination with levels or curves etc., but this is not bad at all.

[rylan]

another shot, but i boosted up the contrast a little, and the saturation to make the colors pop a bit more!
let me know on this one!

[gahspidy]

A good one here, Rylan. Better exposure and color. I like her arm posture alot better than the other even though it is still straight down. In this shot, there is life in her arm whereas the other it looked lifeless.
The couple is standing out well with better illumination here.

[rylan]

thanks alot Gary!

[GB1]

I haven't read the other critiques yet. My initial response is that you the pose and moment you captured seem to work. Her pose seems flamboyant, his good too. I like their dress and the details seem OK. The overall exposure seems a tad bit dark but that could be my monitor.

Areas for improvement: I would warm it up. They say to always err on the warm side with portraiture. It seems a tad soft, esp at the bottom, so not sure what was up with that (some lenses are softer at the edges than in the middle, especially at wider apertures). The crop you posted clips off her dress and at the same time leaves a lot of extra space on the right, making me ask "why?" You also centered on him and pushed her to the left, which I feel isn't the most flattering thing to do ( ).

[Kajuah]

On the second photo I think there is too much space to the right, a crop is in order. People generally view a picture from the lower right quadrant >up to the upper right quadrant >over to the upper left quadrant and slowly to the center of the image. Sort of like a nautilus shell

[Xia_Ke]

I like the composition of the first one Rylan but, I think it really needs some levels adjustments like the others mentioned. I played around a little and it livened it up a bit. If you're interested, I can post what I came up with.

[rylan]

sweet Aaron, post er up! i dont mind
id love to see what you guys have in mind!

[Xia_Ke]

Here's the ol' "college try"...LOL What do you think?

[rylan]

wow, what a different Aaron! thanks i really really like that, what exactly did you change?

[Xia_Ke]

Using Lightroom I increased the exposure a bit and added a little fill light. Then I gave the contrast a bit of a boost along with the black levels and a slight vibrance increase.

[rylan]

thanks for posting that up Aaron!