Head shot

[Shadowman]

Comments welcome. 1/250sec, ISO 160, f/8.

[IzzieK]

When you said "Head shot" you really mean it, did you? I wish I can see a clearer image in his sunglasses instead to make it different...

[Shadowman]

When you said "Head shot" you really mean it, did you? I wish I can see a clearer image in his sunglasses instead to make it different...

Hi Izzie,

Thanks for commenting.

[mugge]

I kinda like it. I agree with Izzie, maybe try to get the reflection in the sunglasses.
Cheers Ole

[Dave Humphries]

I'll be the first to admit that I consider myself more technical than artistic John,

So please bear that in mind when I say there are a couple of things I would have done differently shooting this.

a) Use a wider aperture to reduce Depth of Field, there's far too much background clutter which is just as sharp, and in similar tonal range, as the subject*

b) Set the black point, the useful range appears to start at 32, instead of zero

I see from the EXIF that it was shot at 10mm (i.e. an ultra wide angle) on a DX DSLR (Nikon D5200) at f/8, so perhaps shooting wide open, at f/3.5 (as your UWA lens is same as mine), would have helped reduce DoF.

* That said, the tight crop and monochrome treatment do help considerably - we are in no doubt what (who) the subject is.


Can you confirm if this is a small crop from a larger capture?
I ask because I don't see the 'perspective' distortions on her head that I would have expected of 10mm and the close camera-subject shooting distance required to capture this across the entire sensor.


If I consider this as 'art', I'd suggest it seems to me to be a faded reproduction of an old print, although some of the background content belies this; it being too contemporary. However, if that was your intent, you succeeded.

Not sure if my comments are what you were hoping for
I found it interesting and educational analysing and writing these comments.

Thanks, Dave

[Shadowman]

I kinda like it. I agree with Izzie, maybe try to get the reflection in the sunglasses.
Cheers Ole

Hi Ole,

Thanks for commenting.

[Shadowman]

I'll be the first to admit that I consider myself more technical than artistic John,

So please bear that in mind when I say there are a couple of things I would have done differently shooting this.

a) Use a wider aperture to reduce Depth of Field, there's far too much background clutter which is just as sharp, and in similar tonal range, as the subject*

b) Set the black point, the useful range appears to start at 32, instead of zero

I see from the EXIF that it was shot at 10mm (i.e. an ultra wide angle) on a DX DSLR (Nikon D5200) at f/8, so perhaps shooting wide open, at f/3.5 (as your UWA lens is same as mine), would have helped reduce DoF.

* That said, the tight crop and monochrome treatment do help considerably - we are in no doubt what (who) the subject is.


Can you confirm if this is a small crop from a larger capture?
I ask because I don't see the 'perspective' distortions on her head that I would have expected of 10mm and the close camera-subject shooting distance required to capture this across the entire sensor.


If I consider this as 'art', I'd suggest it seems to me to be a faded reproduction of an old print, although some of the background content belies this; it being too contemporary. However, if that was your intent, you succeeded.

Not sure if my comments are what you were hoping for
I found it interesting and educational analysing and writing these comments.

Thanks, Dave

Hi Dave,

All comments are beneficial to my growth and you've done well in your analysis. This is a crop of a much larger image, the original composition captured 3/4s of this particular subject and I also ended up cropping about ninety percent of the remainder. I liked the original but the subjects were looking in a direction where there was nothing of interest for a person viewing the photograph, the audience was listening to someone talk.

Lens distortion was greatly reduced by the subject's close proximity to me, she had just moved into frame while I was setting up the shot. Thanks for the editing suggestions, I did feel this particular composition was a bit light in tone.

John