Looking for advice and constructive criticism on my photos

[MemoryBox]

I took this photo of my children and would like some advise on improving my skills. I Used 2 soft boxes, an arctic white background with 2 background lights. I like the picture but maybe my lighting is flat? Any advice would be great.



This photo I like but again I am unsure about lighting and think maybe her left eye is a little dark, any advise at all is welcome.

Thank you,

Amanda x

[Dave Humphries]

I took this photo of my children and would like some advise on improving my skills. I Used 2 soft boxes, an arctic white background with 2 background lights. I like the picture but maybe my lighting is flat? Any advice would be great.

This photo I like but again I am unsure about lighting and think maybe her left eye is a little dark, any advise at all is welcome.

Hi Amanda,

I don't shoot people much (and never with multiple sources), so I'll definitely leave advice on #1 for others to suggest.

On #2, the obvious answer now is to raise the 'camera left' eye (actually her right eye) with a bit of dodging in CS6.
Or, at the time of capture; perhaps a bit of fill from a reflector, or move the light that side a tad closer?

Could you do me a favour please?
Could you click Settings (right at the top),
then Edit Profile (on left)
and put your first name in the Real Name field
and where you are (roughly) in the Location field?
this helps everyone give you more personal and relevant answers - thanks.

Welcome to the CiC forums from me (Dave)

[MemoryBox]

Changed the settings

And thanks for the advice, any more advice is very welcome no matter how bad. Also thanks for pointing out I said left instead of right, silly me lol x

[Shadowman]

Hi Amanda,

The lighting doesn't look totally flat, you've chosen a high key shooting style which eliminates or decreases shadows. Shadows helps define shape; so if you plan to use this lighting style perhaps position your subjects in a way to emphasize depth. Google Avedon lighting which uses a similar setting (white backdrop) but can either eliminate or emphasize shadows depending on how your lighting is setup. Nice efforts.

[IzzieK]

Amanda it will also help your upload for comment and critique (C&C) if you upload your shot in a different post so you will have more audience and advice if you need to improve. I am not an expert in people 'togs but one of our moderators here taught me what I know and he is good.

Also another advice I can give you --- do look at other members' post too and comment on them too and make friends. Good for your learning and good for the soul.

[MemoryBox]

I would like some advise on improving my skills. I Used 2 soft boxes, an arctic white background with 2 background lights. I like the picture but maybe am looking for advice on what I could have done better.


Any comments good or bad are welcome, I appreciate any help you can give me.



This photo is one I did for fun I now regret the cap and the princess top, any pointers would be great!

I look forward to all your comments and advice, tell me the truth I want to hear it.

Amanda x

[Dave Humphries]

Hi again Amanda,

Have you seen this thread?
How to Get Effective Feedback for your Posted Images

Not that you haven't already covered some of the points in there with this post

I do like the last one, even with the issues you mentioned.

[Mike Buckley]

I don't do studio portrait photography and don't review much of it, so I won't comment about the lighting, subject position and the like. I'll only mention that in the last one the camera seems to be a twin-lens reflex model, which would not be held as shown in the photo. The hood would be open at the top to reveal the viewfinder and the user would be looking down into the hood and viewfinder.

[Manfred M]

Hi Amanda - nice images. You have a lot more luck getting your children to pose for you than I ever did. Let me throw a few suggestions at you.


I would look at not having them look straight at the camera in some of the poses and might try to get them to turn their heads and look off the the side a bit. This is probably more important in the second shot, which is a closeup.

If you look at the image of your daughter in the second shot, you will notice that her right eye (the one that is camera left) is smaller than her other eye. This is quite normal, and is the case in something around 95% of people. By turning her so the smaller eye is towards the camera, this will result in the two eyes looking more equal in size. The trick to getting a successful shot here is to have your subject look forward, instead of straight at the camera; a shot where the eyeball is turned towards the camera with the face looking in a different direction can look a bit strange; with too much white one one side and not enough on the other.

You are shooting with your camera just above eye level; you might want to mix this up a bit by shooting some right at eye level and some slightly below (hard to do on your first shot though).

Looking at the lighting; I find it too flat in the first shot; raise your light higher and more to the so that the catchlights are higher and more into the iris and not the pupil as much. Start with the 45/45 position (light angled down at 45 degrees and at a 45 degree position from your camera) and see what that does for the image; remember that most of our light tends to come from up above, so this will look "natural" to us. General rule of thumb is that you want the catchlights at around the 10'o'clock or 2 o'clock positions.

As for the distance from your subject, I tend to set my light modifier about 1 to 2 times the diagonal of the modifer as my distance away from the subject. That will give me a nice soft, diffuse light. I don't know how large your softbox is
.
I do a lot of my portraits with two light sources; the actual flash as my main (key) light and a reflector as my fill light. I started with a piece of foam core or coreplast (the backside of one of my daughter's school project boards). I will sometimes light from behind (single subject only) and use my main light as both a rim light and the main light source that my reflector shoots back at the subject.

On the second shot I would have put a fill card camera left and used it to push in some light from below. I have this type of setup in most of my portrait work; sometime I use a second light, sometimes just a fill card.

You've killed any shadow detail on the background; I assume you've done that on purpose. Works for me, but may look a bit too much like a passport photo to some.


Manfred

[Manfred M]

Amanda; you've posted a similar post twice in the same category so I've moved them into one place. You're likely to get more and better feedback that way.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Amanda. I don't shoot portraits and I don't have any experience in studio shooting. But I can say that your children are very nice and I especially like the last photo. Welcome

[Manfred M]

I did not see your third image when I wrote my previous analysis of the lighting;

What strikes me is the uneveness of the lighting in the last shot. Your son (camera right) and the wall are quite "hot", and the light drop off is quite noticeable when you look from right to left and front to back. Moving your light back will reduce the impact of flash drop off. both along the camera axis and from side to side. The other solution would be to centre the light and have your son in the middle lean forward so he is more or less on the same plane as the other two subjects.

Looking at your son in the middle, he seems to be a be soft (out of focus), so a larger f-stop (f/11?) would probably bring everyone into focus, if you keep the subjects in the same position.

You nicely demonstrate the two points I made about eyes in my previous post:

1. Your daughter's right eye (the smaller eye) is closer to the camera, so in this position, both eyes look to be about the same size. On the other hand, she is looking to camera left, so her eyeball is positioned to the right of her face (camera left) and there is little of no white part of the eye showing on one side while there is lots on the other, and this tend to not look as good as when the eyes are fairly centred.