Portrait of a Friend

[yairh20]

using my Tamron 90mm f/2.5 macro, on my friend at my house



Please Critique and comment.

[Ron Kruger]

Pretty girl. Interesting eyes. Good flesh tones.

[bindows]

Great lighting on her face. Is that an off camera flash or natural light?

[draymorton]

Very nice. What bindows asked.

[Grandpaw]

Very pretty friend and very good job on the picture, Jeff

[jetrim]

Very nice except it seems like the camera should have been tilted up about 1 deg. so as to remove the busyness of the blue and yellow outer-garment, and add the top of her head.

[yairh20]

First off. I'd like to thank everyone for their comments, second of all, yes its off camera flash (nikon sb-600) as you can see by the catchlights in her eyes (two, and being that there is only one sun...) . Jetrim - I see what your saying, she is just shorter then I am, and therefore when i tried being at her eye level, I dropped down too much, a tendency I have to work on, but thatnk you for pointing it out!

[draymorton]

What did you use for a modifier? Umbrella?

And were you shooting Manual or TTL?

[yairh20]

Yes, It was an umbrella. All manual, flash was at 1/8 i think.

[dwaugh]

It must be the umbrella that I see reflecting in the eye. It's not a big issue and there isn't much you can do about that except for moving the flash. Do you only have one external flash? I think the crop is good. The only way I would know if anything else would look better is if you had posted multiple shots to choose from.
From my professional training in portraits, one thing that I notice right away is the hair that nearly halfway covers the one eye. Also, at least for the kind of portraits I was trained in, head tilt is another issue, but this is a different kind of portrait than what I was doing, and it's subject to your decision for what 'works' for the portrait. Overall, from that, I would just suggest to try and keep the hair out of the eye next time, or at least more so than in this shot. Other than those minor details, this is quite a good portrait.

EDIT: Why did you choose f2.5?

[yairh20]

I actually think catch lights look good, they add something to a lifeless subject. Yes I only have one flash. I see what you mean and I'll take that into account next time I'm shooting. I chose f/2.5 to get the greenery in the Background OOF and get a nice Bokah.

[dwaugh]

The Bokah is great. I only asked because some of the hair lower in the photo and the shirt, etc., is slightly out of focus, but that's not a problem since the main focus is the face. It was just an observation.
I asked about the flash because an easy way to eliminate the reflection in the eye is to just have two flashes, one on each side at the right angle to make the light right, but I'm sure you know that. Having two flashes, if you do a lot with flashes, is a great investment.

[yairh20]

I will get a second (and third) flash one of these days, but for now, my second flash is the sun. I go to a place dial the exposure so the second side of the face is exposed the way I'd like it to be (fill light) and then add flash!

[Didache]

Good job - and a pretty girl. The colours of her top don't bother me at all - they close off the bottom of the frame nicely. Were it not there the white of her top would dominate rather too much. I am presuming that the eyes are in focus - at the resolution for the web, the focus looks just a little like it is on the nose and mouth.

A very pleasing portrait and I am sure she would be very happy with it - looking at your other work, you are clearly quite accomplished in the portrait department.

Cheers
Mike

[yairh20]

Thank you! I think the focus is on the eyes, but I can't be sure...