First time portraits

First time doing portraits, feel free to give advice or tear apart (I know they may seem a bit dark, but my wife is so fair skinned that I feel this was the way to go about for lighting)

Not bad at all for a first time. Now, I am not an expert on portraits (I wish...) so I find it difficult to comment on this. What I can tell you is that I like the second and third one best. The second would be better if more hair was shown. The third is well composed but the hand is not entirely sharp, although this is not disturbing in my opinion.

Keep it up. If this was your first attempt, then we can expect a lot from you.

Cheers,
Frank

Hi,
I agree with Hightree. The third is definately the best. Have you not thought about some colour correction in Photoshop? There is a blue colour cast (cold!) and the images are dark. After the correction try applying a warming filter.

Compositionally, I like. However, I feel your wife's wedding ring is distractingly off-centre and that her nail varnish is excessive for the image.

I hope I've been constructive.

Kind regards,
Chris

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hindey

However, I feel your wife's wedding ring is distractingly off-centre and that her nail varnish is excessive for the image.

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Very good point. As said above also, a little more hair in pic two would've been nice, but since it's your wife, reshoots should be a breeze!:D

Jared

I agree that your [edit] second photo is your strongest. Portraits are not easy, but if you can try to remember details, details, details. Speaking of the third pic, there are several details to be paid attention to: the off-center ring, the dark area where her abdomen is, the harsh shadows in the cleavage area, the cut off fingertips, all distractions. However, with some photoshop work you can actually turn these into some really nice pics. I hope you don't mind, but I played around with them in PS just to see what I could do with them. Of course, the point is to try to get it right in the camera to begin with. But how many of us actually accomplish that 100%? LOL My favorite below is the b/w with a splash of color.

Good work. Keep at it.

P.S. play up that fair skin of your wife. With the proper lighting and white balance you'll be getting some amazing photos of her and she'll love you for it. :)

Ray

I actually like the look of the second one the most. I think the angle that it's shot from is the strongest, and I personally always love shooting faces from and upwards or downwards angle, I like how it gives the impression of strong emotion. The third one is very good too, but I like the second one more.

Also, looking at it again, I think the third one just seems too forced. The second one seems like a real, emotional pose, while the third doesn't.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by schrackman

I agree that your [edit] second photo is your strongest. Portraits are not easy, but if you can try to remember details, details, details. Speaking of the third pic, there are several details to be paid attention to: the off-center ring, the dark area where her abdomen is, the harsh shadows in the cleavage area, the cut off fingertips, all distractions. However, with some photoshop work you can actually turn these into some really nice pics. I hope you don't mind, but I played around with them in PS just to see what I could do with them. Of course, the point is to try to get it right in the camera to begin with. But how many of us actually accomplish that 100%? LOL My favorite below is the b/w with a splash of color.

Good work. Keep at it.

P.S. play up that fair skin of your wife. With the proper lighting and white balance you'll be getting some amazing photos of her and she'll love you for it. :)

Ray

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Going with what you said, I like to try to do my best to get the perfect image into the camera, I am not a fan of photoshop, unless downsizing image for posting, changing black or white, or is for another person, because i feel people use it too much and may become sloppy photographers because of it, BUT, I love the conversion to B+W with the coloured rose (psssss, how'd you do that)

I think everyone else pretty much hit what I was going to say. But I did want to make one other comment, simliar to Rays.

As someone who is a member of the pastey white never tans straight to bright red sunburn club, I think these would all be alot nicer if the skintones were lighter. When you try to compensate for light skin, the whole photo, to me, gets an underexposed look.

Plus, I love pastey skin with dark hair, or with freckles.

Also, try without the ponytail

These are good for your first attempt.

adina

ah yes, very good suggestion. I think having the hair down would help add to the picture. Maybe or maybe not. I guess all you can do is shoot a couple and see what they look like.