Fernanda

[Chataignier]

A couple of shots from a recent studio portrait session :

[Dave Humphries]

Hi David,

A nice series and although I'm relatively inexperienced at this type of shooting, my thoughts are as follows. Please bear in mind you have much to be proud of here, I am being super nit-picky, hopefully to provide you with constructive feedback.

All three have about 5% (height) more space above the head than I would have framed, or cropped.

You have good separation of her hair from dark clothing, however, the aspect of lighting that jars for me is that of reflections - I feel her forehead is too bright in #1, similarly her sleeve+cuff in #2 and also a reflection on her teeth and her lit shoulder in #3.

The background, and possible PP treatment of it in #3 also distracts me from the subject.

Hope that's all helpful, Dave

[Manfred M]

+1 to Dave's comments. I had the same reaction. The only other point I would raise is that the skin tone in #1 and the camera left arm on #3 look a bit odd. They look too orange for my taste.

[Chataignier]

Thanks for the feedback - I generally find that I like the changes when I follow up on comments like these. I'm off to the mountains for a few days, but I'll give it a go when I get back.
It's annoying that I dont seem to see the defects myself.

[Dave Humphries]

~
It's annoying that I don't seem to see the defects myself.

It often takes critical analysis on a fresh day for me to see mine!

[Manfred M]

I remember reading that while Ansel Adams took his iconic photo, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico in 1941, he was not happy with his interpretation of that scene until the early 1970s, so it took him over 30 years to figure things out.

He also made well over 1300 prints of that image, each one was at least slightly different than the others.

I remember seeing an earlier and a later print and personally find his earlier interpretations to be more to my taste.