Seeking advices on a portrait

[Seb]

Hello guys,

I hardly ever shoot portraits but this is something I want/need to get good at.

Few weeks ago I was spending a week-end in the country and I have made few attemps at portraits. It was arround noon under harsh sunlight so the lightning was less than ideal but I found a large tree which I tought would act both as a light diffuser and an uniform background.

So here it is. Comments are especially welcome for that specific shot!

regards

Seb

(some sharpness of the original was lost due to the compression to shrink the file down in size in order to fit on the board.... I mean, it's always the case but it is especially noticeable with this picture.)

[jcharris]

Hi Seb ,

I am not a expert in portraits either , but i will give you my thoughts.
The only thing i would change is to give it a tighter crop . The tree is a bit distracting for me.
I have cropped your version a bit . Hope you don't mind.

Regards james

[BLS439]

I also join the club of being a non expert (well, intermediate) portrait photographer. In high school I took a photo class that was based primarily on B+W photography but dabbled in color. I remember at the time, learning to take portraits using B+W film was so much easier than using color film. The B+W let me learn portraiture in steps: shadows, highlights, lighting, composition, etc. The only things I really had to worry about when making the move to color was, just that, color: daylight hues, tungsten hues, etc.

Anywho, I do like your pic, but it seems a bit flat to me. It's a great idea to use the tree as a backdrop and diffuser, but I think it may have diffused a bit too much.

Also, you might want to try having less depth of field. I think if the D.O.F. ended just behind your subjects blurring the grain of the bark it would make your subjects stand out more from the busy background.

Here's one of my B+W portraits I did two years ago, it wa one of my first attempts.

[wposloski]

Seb,

Another opinion from someone who does not do a lot of portraits (unless the subjects have feathers, scales or an exoskeleton). It does need to be cropped although I think jcharris was a bit too extreme and the crop should not touch the gentleman's hat, but instead be a bit above it. As to BLS439's comment about it being a tad flat, I would agree. It is amazing what a quick manipulation in ps can do for that, go image->adjust->autolevels.

I think you did well with the ambiant light.

Bill

[Seb]

Hi Seb ,

I am not a expert in portraits either , but i will give you my thoughts.
The only thing i would change is to give it a tighter crop . The tree is a bit distracting for me.
I have cropped your version a bit . Hope you don't mind.

Regards james

Hello James,

I don't mind you reworking my pictures at all. It's an excellent way to explain idea's.
Actually, the framing and the dof were on purpose. As I said, I am not experienced with portraits but I wanted to try something different from the typical portrait where the background is blurried. I thought about the tree as a plus rather than a distraction. Look's like it doesn't works.

thank you for commenting.

Seb

[Seb]

I also join the club of being a non expert (well, intermediate) portrait photographer. In high school I took a photo class that was based primarily on B+W photography but dabbled in color. I remember at the time, learning to take portraits using B+W film was so much easier than using color film. The B+W let me learn portraiture in steps: shadows, highlights, lighting, composition, etc. The only things I really had to worry about when making the move to color was, just that, color: daylight hues, tungsten hues, etc.

Anywho, I do like your pic, but it seems a bit flat to me. It's a great idea to use the tree as a backdrop and diffuser, but I think it may have diffused a bit too much.

Also, you might want to try having less depth of field. I think if the D.O.F. ended just behind your subjects blurring the grain of the bark it would make your subjects stand out more from the busy background.

Here's one of my B+W portraits I did two years ago, it wa one of my first attempts.

Hello BLS,

Thank you for commenting. I do like your picture too although I think that the lightning was too harsh. Nevertheless, it is very lively and that is what is drawing my attention at first.

As I have said to James, the dof was on purpose. I have tried a (very) quick b&w convertion yesterday and it seems to works well with the picture. I'll rework it some more and post it later this week.

I think that you are right about the flatness. I haven't noticed it at first but you are making a point.

regards

Seb

[Seb]

Seb,

Another opinion from someone who does not do a lot of portraits (unless the subjects have feathers, scales or an exoskeleton). It does need to be cropped although I think jcharris was a bit too extreme and the crop should not touch the gentleman's hat, but instead be a bit above it. As to BLS439's comment about it being a tad flat, I would agree. It is amazing what a quick manipulation in ps can do for that, go image->adjust->autolevels.

I think you did well with the ambiant light.

Bill

Hello Bill,

I am glad to hear that you like what I have did with the lightning. I will rework the picture but I am not too sure how I will crop it. I wanted to make the tree and leafs an integral part of the picture but I may change that.

regards

Seb

[jcharris]

Hi Seb ,

The photo did work for me . I liked this shot with the background like you did . Like Bill mentioned , the crop i used was a bit too tight .
The only reason why i tried a tight crop was almost if you need to look down on the photo to see the couple.
But do not worry that it did not work - that was only my thoughts !

Regards
james

[Lava Lamp]

Hello guys,

I hardly ever shoot portraits but this is something I want/need to get good at.

Few weeks ago I was spending a week-end in the country and I have made few attemps at portraits. It was arround noon under harsh sunlight so the lightning was less than ideal but I found a large tree which I tought would act both as a light diffuser and an uniform background.

So here it is. Comments are especially welcome for that specific shot!

regards

Seb

(some sharpness of the original was lost due to the compression to shrink the file down in size in order to fit on the board.... I mean, it's always the case but it is especially noticeable with this picture.)

Good job. As happens with some of my own photos, you almost have two differnt photos here competing for attention. If you draw a line over the couple's head, you find that you have a nice photo fo the tree and a nice photo fo the people. If the people were about a foot taller, it would work great, but as ist is, I think you really have to crop.

[Seb]

Good job. As happens with some of my own photos, you almost have two differnt photos here competing for attention. If you draw a line over the couple's head, you find that you have a nice photo fo the tree and a nice photo fo the people. If the people were about a foot taller, it would work great, but as ist is, I think you really have to crop.

That is a very interesting point of view Lava Lamp! I am glad to have submited this one here; you give me food for thoughts.

regards

Seb