up close!

[harmon1]

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured.

[harmon1]

Thanks Shadowman!

[Manfred M]

Harmon - you are really keeping me busy today commenting on your postings.

To start with, I like this shot as well. The framing works (again, vertical / portrait orientation tends to be more commonly used) and I like the way you have cut the head, thereby moving your model's eyes higher in the frame. This generally works well and is all the more important with the image orientation that you used.

Sticking with your model's eyes. this revels something I suspected in your other two shots, but couldn't tell definitively; you seem to be missing your focus. In portraiture, the most important thing is to get your model's eye(s) in focus, or at least the eye that is closest to the camera. While I tend to not like photographic rules, this is one that usually has to be adhered to. Check your focus setup. For portraits I tend to use a spot focus (not meter) / recompose workflow; the more complex focus modes tend to miss more often than not.

Your fill light seems to be quite hard too; we really shouldn't be seeing the shadow cast by your model's earring on her face. You need something more diffuse and probably dialed back a bit; your fill light seems almost as strong as your main light; so we get a bit of a shadow on your model's nose (camera right) and then the large earring shadow in the opposite direction. Viewers tend to find that a bit odd, as we go through life with a single light source shining down from above. If we deviate from that, the image tends to look a bit odd to us. With a softer light, you could sculpt some of your model's cheekbone structure and that can give you a very nice effect. I notice the two catchlights in each eye; as mentioned in another post, I would probably clone out the lower one in each eye. That give's the model's eyes a spark without looking a bit off. I also like the highlights in the model's hair from your main light.

The other thing to watch for is your model's arm placement. She has positioned her arm in a way that casts a distinctive shadow across the lower part of her body and chest. A different fill light or her not positioning her arm between her face and light would fix that issue (I suspect a fairly small light source is being used for fill light).

The bottoms of her eyes are a touch dark and that can easily be fixed in post.

As I wrote about your other postings today; very, very nice images, but fix a few fairly minor things and your images will be even stronger.

[harmon1]

Thanks very much, I appreciate the feedback, I will experiment some more with the model positioning and lighting.

[Manfred M]

Thanks very much, I appreciate the feedback, I will experiment some more with the model positioning and lighting.

Question - what are you using as light sources, how have you set them up and where are you positioning them?

Manfred

[harmon1]

2 600ws and 1 400ws strobes. One on background, one with soft cover on beaty dish front left, 400ws behind the camera.

[Manfred M]

2 600ws and 1 400ws strobes. One on background, one with soft cover on beaty dish front left, 400ws behind the camera.

I was just wondering if you might want to raise your key light a bit; it looks like you should have it set a bit higher. I find that when I see the catchlights at either the 10:00 o'clock or 2:00 o'clock positions, I've got the key light set high enough.

A soft cover on a beauty dish will soften the light a bit, but a beauty dish does pump out fairly contrasty light (I assume you are using a white one, rather than a silver one?) I tend to place mine fairly close to the subject, just out of range of the camera (but that tends to be the way I place most of my lights; close to the subject to soften the light).

Your fill light looks rather hard and my guess is that you might want to try reducing the power to perhaps half of what you are shooting; that should still give you some fill light that is soft enough for a woman and have some nice interesting shadows. That should help eliminate that shadow cast by the ear ring.