Model in Dress

Taken last weekend. Her dark skin really contrasts with her white dress. I know this photo's background is a bit busy, and probably a little too centered also. C&Cs welcome.

GB

I bet she looks beautiful with her chin down.

Good shot. Looks like theres some haloing on her left (well, HER right, our left). The fold in her dress that runs along her belly should be removed. Cant think of anything else. Did you revisit this model or is this from the previous shoot?

I wish her face were brighter. I would agree to not having her looking up as the top part of the photo doesn't look very...errr...attractive :) Looking to her left may be a better option. If not, I think it may have been better to have included the wall more and the background less.

Agree with most of the criticisms thus far. Also agree with Anbesol that it is a good shot. Not sure if the head position bothers me; she's gorgeous regardless. Above all, her face really does need to be a little brighter than everything else.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PhilF

I bet she looks beautiful with her chin down.

---

:D Wow. "Do you know that your nose wiggles when you talk?"

I like it but agree with the haloing being a bit bothersome. It is around her feet as well. And being the girl I am, it bothers me that you can see her bra through the shirt, but that is not really on you, maybe just some crafty editing to make it less obvious.

Phil - Chin down you have. I've posted another shot of her, which I feel doesn't quite have some of the intangibles of the first post, but you tell me ?

Anbesol - This is from the photo shoot on August 21st. There were quite a number of models and photographers there. I did a lot of shooting with this model. It was easy working w/ her because she really enjoyed posing.

The haloing is due to my sloppy attempt to mask her off and darken everything else, so to make her stand out more. I'm finding that its often really difficult to get this perfect. The new post is hardly edited, so what do you think of it?

Dray - I see what you mean, but it's really hard to selectively lighten her face w/o doing the same to the rest of her exposed skin. I think a tanned model in a white dress is really setting the photographer up for frustration :D I wonder how the wedding photographers do it? They must have a trick or two ...

Amorton, I went ahead and tried to smooth out the see-through areas and also the folds on her dress. W/o making it too obvious that it was edited. As you can read about, the halo was an unintentional side effect of masking her and darkening the background. I used a feathering effect on the mask which apparently graduated over too far. Ahh.. post processing, isn't it a blast. I wonder if one day can find someone who can work some magic on my images and free me up to just shoot. But then I might be bored.

G

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AgingEyes

I wish her face were brighter. I would agree to not having her looking up as the top part of the photo doesn't look very...errr...attractive :) Looking to her left may be a better option. If not, I think it may have been better to have included the wall more and the background less.

---

Looks like I missed your post AE! Yes I also wish her face were brighter. I tried lightening up the shadow areas with the new post below - does that look right? A lot of models seem to like this 'looking up' pose. I'm generally against it: to me, it makes the model look, well, a bit snooty. But I am not sure that they view it like that.

BTW, I tried cropping in and mostly eliminating the background on the right. This changed the entire photo; it seemed more constricted, less interesting to me. Try a crop of either the first or new post here and tell me what you think. Composition is a funny thing sometimes.

GB

I def noticed the haloing also in the first image. I am not sure if the right arm looks natural in either picture, but think it looks better in the 1st. My problem with the head position in the first is that we can see that she is just staring in that direction because she is being posed (because we can see the roof on the top right of the photo). If you scroll down just enough to cut off the top portion of the photo where the roof is shown it gives a different feel to what she is looking at. Not saying that I would consider cropping it there though. Overall it is a great shot though. Would love to be able to shoot something close to this quality.



Oh, and why the heck would someone paint the door frame blue on a building like this. That totally looks odd.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GB1

I tried lightening up the shadow areas with the new post below - does that look right?

---

Your second post has her looking at the camera. That alone makes a big different because we are attracted to pretty faces :D :D Seriously I mean human face always get the attention of the viewers. It does look a bit brighter but have to say, on my monitor, it's not a whole lot different. And, overall, the image seems to have lost a little bit of contrast though (I assume you were simply experimenting a bit and your final version would not be like that?)

Quote:

---

A lot of models seem to like this 'looking up' pose. I'm generally against it: to me, it makes the model look, well, a bit snooty. But I am not sure that they view it like that.

---

The thing about the original with that looking-up post there, to me, is that the viewers - at least I - then could follow her eyes and trying to see what she was looking at. What she was looking at doesn't seem to be interesting :) Anyhow, perhaps there's a place for a looking-up pose...may be you have to shoot it from a different perspective to make it works ?

Quote:

---

BTW, I tried cropping in and mostly eliminating the background on the right. This changed the entire photo; it seemed more constricted, less interesting to me. Try a crop of either the first or new post here and tell me what you think. Composition is a funny thing sometimes.

---

Between the two, I prefer the second one. Would like to see more room left side of the photo if possible. At the end of the day, I'd say it's the eye contact with the model that makes the second pic stronger.

Thanks Shawn, this is great advice: When a model's looking away or up, it isn't good to see that she's just looking at the roof. Shooting this wasn't tricky: it was too bright to shoot in open light, making a shadow location a must. A reflector might have helped but it would have to have been wide enough to lighten the entire scene (otherwise it would have just looked weird). Luckily, my new D700's dynamic range is OK enough to handle the backlit right side. Add a little post processing, and there it is.

btw, a lot of times the experience, presence and attractiveness of the model makes the difference between good and bad images. It's great when you have a model who can mostly pose herself and you can concentrate on the photography aspect. I don't know about those blue frames btw, but there's a lot of that style in S. Cali... I think it's a Mediterranean thing or something.

AE, yes, the second posting was less refined than the first as far as lighting and contrast. Point taken on the looking up pose. It's just funny how many models automatically use that pose, and I'm usually trying to adjust them down.

It's also interesting how different models have different strengths. I have a friend who poses for me on occasion, and her strongest images by far are the those where she is looking directly at the camera, subtly just not working with her. Other models photograph a lot better when looking off into the distance, or at a stream, etc. Someone could write a book on this ...

GB