David

[billtils]

[DanK]

I like this, but if it were mine, I'd modify it:

--the choice of nearly identical background and sweater is unfortunate. It makes his head look disembodied. I'd lighten the sweater and shirt.

--the lighting is a little harsh

--I'd extend the canvas a little bit at the top to make the crop less tight.

One difficulty is that the sweater, shirt, and background are similar enough that I think you'd have to do a careful manual selection.

Here's a very quick and dirty edit to show some of this. (very quick and dirty--I had blown up the image and missed the bottom when lightening the sweater, and I wasn't super careful with the selection.) I lightened the clothes, darkened the face a tad, burned the top of the head a bit more, and added a tiny bit of midtone contrast to the face. Not a good job, but it illustrates the directions I would take it.

[billtils]

Thanks for the feedback Dan.

I think for the first time ever here, we are not quite on the same page! Yes, the sweater gets a bit lost but in this case I didn't want it to catch the eye, and the lighting on the head is pretty much what I was after. I agree with the space st the top though. Overall it's pretty much what I was after but I respect your input enough to be persuaded to take another look this evening and tweak things - maybe just a little though.

[DanK]

It's all a matter of taste, after all.

Re the sweater: several years ago, I took a candid of one of my grandkids when he was well under the age of 1, at an age when most kids still look like Winston Churchill. I converted it to B&W, and it worked very well for the most part, but the clothes were very dark and ended up mostly indistinguishable from the background. The parents liked it and asked for a print, but it never sat well with me because it looked like a disembodied head. But again, it's a matter of taste.

[billtils]

Dan

Apologies for the tardy upate. Yes, things often come down to taste but setting that to one side there is merit in your suggested edits.

[DanK]

To my taste, this one is better.

[billtils]

[Manfred M]

I agree with Dan's comments and while the second image is better, I would have preferred more separation between the subject and the top he is wearing. The lighting on the head and the sweater don't look like they come from the same light source. The sweater looks to dark for the amount of light hitting the head. Lots of crushed shadows on the sweater too. Dan and I generally agree to disagree on black (crushed shadows) backgrounds.

[DanK]

Manfred, This is one case where we we only half disagree . The crushed blacks in the background don't bother me, but the crushed blacks in the sweater do because that's part of the figure. You'll see that in my edit, I left the sweater very dark but not crushed.

[pschlute]

It is a well executed image. But I think the biggest issue is not the sweater or the background but the fact that the lighting is too uniform. It is like he has been surrounded by multiple lights all outputting at the same intensity. It makes for a flat image.

I would try lowering the light on some of the strobes to bring out a bit more character.

[BobGilbody]

Hello Bill,
I like the first version of the portrait. Only thing that I would change is the bit of brown whatever in the top right of the right lens of David's specs [ right as looking at the photo ]. Once I noticed it it became a distraction.

Bob