Face

[DEAN01]

A couple of weeks I shot this face and decided it needed to be B&W. The DOF may be a little too shallow. C&C always.

[bnnrcn]

I'm not a portrait shooter but I like this one Dean I like the way he looks straight at the viewer and I like the conversion. The eyes look a bit soft to me but I think it is because of the pale colored reflections in the eyes. Well, portrait shooters are better than me to clarify the matter

[Shadowman]

Nice effort, there appears to be more sharpness around the nose and mouth than the eyes.

[Mike Buckley]

Gotta love the nice tight crop! The depth of field is also fine. For me, an image in this style is best when the depth of field includes at least the tip of the nose and the eyes. Your image has that.

[DEAN01]

Thank you Binnur, John, and Mike. I appreciate your comments.

[William W]

Nice shot.

I'd lose the hard edge of the brim of the hat.

I think that the eyes are in sharp focus - noted the wisps of hair (camera left) appear as if in the same plane and they razor sharp; I think that the lighting/reflections makes the eyes appear a bit soft; and also the viewer's eyes are distracted by that hat brim, so if the top edge of the image is cropped a fraction tighter, I think that the eyes will (appear to) pop a bit moer.

***

Question please -

What was the SHUTTER SPEED?

WW

E.G.:


opps, my error should have a smidgen tighter to lose the little bit of white at the top, sorry I was rushing . . .

Also - I love the square crop - square crop can be really strong and emphatic - as you displayed here

[DEAN01]

Bill,
Thank you for the suggestions. Shutter speed: 1/400, aperture: f/4, ISO: 800. Heavy fog very flat lighting until afternoon.

[William W]

thanks for answering.

[IzzieK]

As with all your face shots, this one looks good too...this must be one of your ranch guys...at first thought, I thought you had focus on the bridge of his nose...hence the eyes were softer. William's edit made his eyes more pronounced. I will remember using square crop on faces...Thanks for sharing and thanks for the edit, William..

[Mike Buckley]

I prefer the first crop for two reasons. The feather (or whatever it is) on the hat complements the subject's hair and it would be a shame to eliminate it. More important, eliminating the brim of the hat positions the rest of the face differently relative to the frame. The primary result is that the eyes become less prominent and the nose becomes more prominent when I want that to be the other way around as in the original version.

[William W]

Yes, the nose is dominate, I concur. I think a lot to do with that is the shine on the nose.

With Feather and Hat Brim’s edge:

My eyes see the nose and wander up the edge of the nose to the eyes and then are quickly distracted to the feather: with the feather in the shot they then get caught up there and fixate on the feather, it is an effort to move my eye back downwards.

Without feather and Hat Brim’s edge:

After sliding up the nose my eyes are attracted to the white area of the white moustache - and then after viewing the moustache, they get caught by the nose and wander up the nose to the eyes - constantly moving and reviewing.

The crop with the feather in it, is (as a whole image) has more initially impact - the overall image is more striking: but after the initial viewing, I think there is a good chance that most viewer's eyes will linger for less time on the image (with the feather in it) because the feather is distracting and located at the edge of the image.

I don't necessarily prefer either one as being better than the other. Just stating what my (uncontrolled) viewer's eyes do and then attributing that as 'what most (uncontrolled) Viewer's Eyes would do'.

WW

[Mike Buckley]

Just stating what my (uncontrolled) viewer's eyes do and then attributing that as 'what most (uncontrolled) Viewer's Eyes would do'.

When discussing such subtleties, I never assume what others' eyes will do in a given situation; I only know what my own eyes do.

[William W]

When discussing such subtleties, I never assume what others' eyes will do in a given situation; I only know what my own eyes do.

For clarity of meaning the words used are important - I was not assuming what other eyes would do, I was attributing what my eyes do to other viewers' eyes.

There is a difference.

It's often necessary - when making decisions of cropping, maybe 60 per album - there's not a facility to take a poll.

It's a judgement call based upon training one's eyes to be as uncontrolled as possible and also as objective and fresh as possible, even after viewing the same frame several times.

*

However, what's more interesting to me, is not whether you think I am making assumptions or not, but what your eye actually does: that's not clear by either of your responses.

If you mean that your eye does NOT get stuck on the white band and the feather then that would be useful to know - so, how does your eye move across the two images?

WW