Portraits

[jweswarner]

I don't post on here much so I thought I would post a recent shoot that I did, I am local to oldtimer, Larry I hope you jump in and critique my shoot. This shoot was outdoors using one sb-800 into umbrella using pocket wizards, shooting Nikon D80 with 12-24 lens.

[Don Schaeffer]

I think the poses are a little stiff. Interesting setting though. The lighting looked good.

[jweswarner]

yeah, I agree, she wasn't one to lighten up much

[TracerNH]

My main issue with 1,2 & 5 are the bright areas coming from the sky and the windows which take my attention away from the subject. She looks most relaxed with the nicest facial expressions in #1.

[draymorton]

I think #1 could be really good with some touch-ups and alterations. The pose is nice, she looks relaxed, and I love the blue window (did you put a blue-gelled speedlight in there or something?).

The first thing I would do is experiment with cropping, getting rid of the sky portion of the frame, and see how that looks.

EDIT: or... if you wanna get super duper sneaky and disingenuous, you could add in a more dramatic sky and blend it in with the trees using the blending modes.

[xystren]

I think the poses are a little stiff. Interesting setting though. The lighting looked good.

I agree with Don on this. If I had to pick the best pose out of all of them, it would be #5 (last one)

[jweswarner]

TracerNH and systren:
Yes the blown out sky is distracting, wasn't really happy with it myself.

Draymorton:
Yeah we was using a speedlight with a blue gel in behind the door, we did blue to go along with the blue dress.

Thanks everyone for your comments, helps me get better prepared for next time and see stuff I didn't notice myself.