The Bartender

[Digital]

This may not be more than a lousy snapshot; however it does show the young lady in her work environment.

Bruce

[Evertking]

lovely bartender and picture.

[Manfred M]

Bruce - this is a nice attempt of an environmental portrait. Your subject, in those surroundings is clearly a bartender.

The red / magenta overtones in the other images from this series can be seen in this image as well, so I won't dwell on them, rather I'd like to point out a few compositional "issues", that I mostly eliminated just cropping the shot. I find that you shot a bit too high as there is too much space above your subject's head and consequently not quite enough down towards the top of the bar.

The other thing you should look at are the distractions, especially along the edges of the image. If you crop some of them out, this will give you a stronger image. The bits of the bar along the right hand side are easy to trim , but on the left hand side, the bit of red light, the distracting bright shutter (which is skewed) and the ceiling light are all distracting elements. Cropping them also removes part of the bottle in the front, which is not necessarily desirable. The bright lights above the bartender's head are also a bit distracting.

[Shadowman]

Snapshots are never lousy unless they are just blurry, nice shot.

[Digital]

Another pic of "The Bartender".

[Manfred M]

The colours are definitely closer on this one, but still a touch on the magenta side.

I find the crop along the bottom a bit awkward with a bit of her clothing showing. I suspect a less tight crop on that area would work a bit better.

[Digital]

Better?

[Manfred M]

Better?

The reason I suggested that the crop on the bottom was too tight was that the image is suggestive that she is dressed too seductively. Showing more of the bottom would fix that issue, but if you did not capture it, then it's hard to show it.

[Digital]

Another crop.

[Manfred M]

I find the second crop works much better.

[Digital]

I find the second crop works much better.

Thanks Manfred.

Bruce

[Digital]

In the last few days I finished Neil van Niekerk's books: "The Direction and Quality of Light", and "On-Camera Flash".
IMHO both of these books are excellent reads for anyone interested in portraiture, and/or wedding photography.
As I gain experience in portraiture photography, these books will be an invaluable as reference material.
I want to thank Manfred for recommending "On-Camera Flash" to me.

Bruce