First Photo Shoot

[truonda]

I did my first photo shoot with a friend over the weekend and it was surprisingly a lot of fun. Here are some of the better shots after sorting through a ton of them and some post processing.

My personal favorites are #1 and #5!

Comments and critics are welcome!

#1


#2


#3


#4


#5

[Shadowman]

Hi Daniel, how many of these shots were cropped during post processing and which ones were framed during the shoot? I ask because there are some severe crops, especially first image (hands, back of head), position of body in #4. The poses look good, some background distractions in most.
#1 BG looks fine.
#2 BG foreground OOF leaves are larger than subject.
#3 BG looks fine.
#4 BG pole in background too visible, object she's leaning on looks out of place.
#5 BG looks fine except for tree limb upper right corner.

[NorthernFocus]

I'd say you did pretty good, Daniel. I'm no portrait shooter. Well not human portraits at least. I agree with the prior comments regarding choice of crops and some messy BG. On the other hand the lighting is nice. Cropped differently (a bit tighter), no.3 is awesome.

[Manfred M]

Hi Daniel - these shots are after my own heart; I like images that are shot fairly wide open and have beautifully blurred backgrounds.

A few thought, starting with a couple of general observations. I find that the images have a bit of a green cast when looking at the skin. This is not all that unusual when shooting under trees where the leaves act as a multitude of little reflectors. Adding a touch of magenta and a touch of blue in post would fix this up, I suspect

I also find that the images are all a bit overexposed; maybe around 1/3 to 1/2 stop.

Another "rule" in photography is that our eyes are drawn to the bright areas of the image, and if this is not the subject, the composition often is not as strong as it could be.

Image 1 - If this were my shot, I'd look at cropping about 1/2 of the space above your model's head. I don't find it adds to the image. I might also clone out the bright spots on the very left as well. Other than that, a very nice image.

Image 2 - My eyes are drawn to the bright and out of focus leaves on the left side of the image, rather than the subject. Crop out the leaves and you have a much stronger image.

Image 3 - This is a tricky shot; your model is in shadow and to expose her properly, you end up blowing out vast parts of the background, which draws our eyes away from the subject. You've lost any separation of the subject's dress and background. Throwing a lot of fill light at your subject so as to tone down the dynamic range in this shot is really needed to make this work.

Image 4 - I completely agree with John's assessment. You have two competing parts of the image, the model and the pole. Crop out the pole and you have a much stronger composition.

Image 5 - Weird shooting angle on this one, doesn't really work for me. I find that these extreme angles generally do not work well. It's almost as if you were shooting an abstract shot of a tree and you got photobombed by the model... Crop out the top half of the image (to well below the branch that John points out), and you have a stronger image.

Try shooting in a range from just above to just below eye level. The strange angles work in some situations, but not really in this one

[truonda]

Hi everyone,

The first thing I want to say is that I didn't crop any of these photos. This is just the way I like to do my portraits: up close and not too much body. I took some full body shots only after my friend scolded me for not showing off her dress more

In retrospect, I think I could have framed a couple shots a little better. The pole in #4 is very distracting now that people mention it. Also I think I could have included more of the table in because I feel like she's kinda floating right now.

My thought process for #2 was that the background looks too similar to #1 so I wanted to add another element to it. I agree that the brightness and the size of the leaves are drawing attention away from the model and I shouldn't have done that.

Lastly, thank you Manfred for noticing that the model's skin was a bit green and how to fix it. It looks a lot more vivid now!

Cheers,
Dan

[Haver Lemez]

Very good, like a lot

[dragon76]

Dan

What I am about to suggest is by no means the rules or experts tips but this is what I'd do if I were to take these shots myself.

Apart from shooting technique, posing is quite important when it comes to portraits.

#1 - Firstly, Im not a big fan of 90 degrees angle turning shot because it creates neck creases which I do not like. So I normally do three-quater pose shot. But if you must then try to get the model to drop the chin and shoulders down.

#3 - I'd get the model to place one leg slightly infront of the other and anchor with the back leg and this should create a triangle shape from the hips down to the feet. I'd also remove the big watch and let go of the phone and bring her left arm to the front or run it contour to her hip and this should create a more attractive S shape which would add more feminine element into the shot.

Happy shooting

Dean

[truonda]

Thanks Dean. I'll keep your tips in mind for the next shoot!