Aleksia portrait (1)

[bje07]

[bnnrcn]

Beautiful portrait, beautiful BG

[Manfred M]

Another nice portrait, Jean.

Two things that I think might improve the image are:

1. The pose is looking rather forced and has this "deers in the headlights" look, i.e. she is too busy trying to pose and does not look comfortable or natural in this shot. This accentuates the lines on her forehead.

2. The bright area on the right of the image is drawing the viewer's eyes away from the subject. A crop there would help too.

[bje07]

You are right Manfred, on the monochrome version I made before your comment I cropped a bit.
Why didn't I do that on the original color version? I cannot remember.

[Dave Humphries]

That's quite a 'hard' key light Jean,

Any particular reason?

I ask because I see, apart from the hard edged shadow across her forehead, it is also making more micro-contrast in her skin pores and even the area below her lip, which looks especially 'smudgy' in the B&W.

Fortunately your 'fill' is at sufficient level that it mitigates these issues to some extent.

The smaller light source for the key also gives a tiny pinprick catch light that side too, compared to the larger one from the fill.

In an ideal world, with that fairly busy background, I'd have moved her further from it to throw it in to softer focus.

HTH, Dave

[bje07]

In an ideal world, with that fairly busy background, I'd have moved her further from it to throw it in to softer focus.

You are right, but I haven't enough space in my back
My main session was with a black background, then she moved 90° and was few cm against a printed wall.
It is not an excuse but that why what was a small back light became a small key light.
I learn from my own mistakes.

[Dave Humphries]

~ but that why what was a small back light became a small key light.

and I thought that kind of thing only happened to me when shooting my 6 month old grand-daughter

[Shadowman]

Very nice.