Portraits of friends

[mikehulsebus]

I've been doing a series of portraits for friends of mine recently and here's some from the most recent set. I've done quite a bit of editing on some of these and the other ones I liked. I had access to a reflector (part of a box with one side tin foil, the other side white poster board), and a flash (canon 420) in regards to lighting. I ended up with eight or so that I really liked. Here's three of em



And then the attached image is one I like, but can't really do much of anything much with. I took it while I was just taking some test shots to make sure my exposure and everything was correct so didn't bother with composition or location. I just like the expression so much that'd it be cool if I could do something with it. Of my eight good images, 3 are horizontal head shots, so I'd like to do something different with this one, yet still keep a typical photograph aspect ratio.
So those're my photos, do what you will with em.

[opus]

I've been doing a series of portraits for friends of mine recently and here's some from the most recent set. I've done quite a bit of editing on some of these and the other ones I liked. I had access to a reflector (part of a box with one side tin foil, the other side white poster board), and a flash (canon 420) in regards to lighting. I ended up with eight or so that I really liked. Here's three of em



And then the attached image is one I like, but can't really do much of anything much with. I took it while I was just taking some test shots to make sure my exposure and everything was correct so didn't bother with composition or location. I just like the expression so much that'd it be cool if I could do something with it. Of my eight good images, 3 are horizontal head shots, so I'd like to do something different with this one, yet still keep a typical photograph aspect ratio.
So those're my photos, do what you will with em.

Not sure if this is what you had in mind, and I don't know what the "typical" aspect ratio is, but what do you think of this crop?

Are you thinking you want to do other effects?

[mikehulsebus]

Um first off, I think i'm gonna have to critique myself and say that I did a really bad job color balancing and contrast enhancing that last one. I restarted at the original and re-edited. While I was taking out a rail I figured I'd also get rid of the iron bridge part that intersects with her head. Attached is a version I like better yet still feels a little too dark.
Anyhow though, to answer Kelly's question, by "typical" i meant something that'd print to typical dimensions (4x6, 5x7, etc--in other words square crops wouldn't work). I like the crop you've come up with Kelly, I'm thinkin that's the best way to go vertical.
On another topic, you mentioned effects and I was thinking a soft focus filter might go well with one of these or the other ones, but things're ending up a bit too fuzzy when I attempt to go about it in PSP.

[natatbeach]

i think the colors and positioning are o.k.for the most part...I wish there was more of her top in it...I adjusted the levels a bit a bit brighter and brought shadows to the right a bit) applied diffuse glow filter at 0 grain, 1 for glow amount, clear amount at 9) and unsharp mask- amount 52% and radius .3, burned in shadows on her face at a 27% and increased the contrast last.

and here's my take...would love to see your round #2 of this person...I thinko overall you did a good job.

[mikehulsebus]

Cool, cool, thanks for the how-to on that one, will give me a good start when I edit it
Anyone have comments on the lighting, poses, etc? (More shots at
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~thebus/photowork3.htm if you wanna get a good idea of how things turned out) I know my poses are rather....simple...thus far--anyone know of a good spot to get myself some ideas (aside from browsing these forums of course, which i do regularly )