What's up with this?

[pono]

Just trying to take good photos. Tell me what's up! Thanks.

[Geoff F]

Shane, I will leave the technical comments to the portrait experts, but for me everything was wrong here. You were on a hopeless cause from the beginning.

The background is totally wrong; too close, too bright and generally overpowering the model. The lighting is poor, was it backlit? And all of the above has resulted in exposure problems.

Depth of focus also seems very shallow; perhaps you were deliberately using an aperture to blur the background, but unless you crop a lot tighter it leaves her neck and shoulders rather soft.

Careful editing would improve the situation but she is obviously an attractive subject so if it is possible, I would like to reshoot under much better conditions. I'm sure that there is a great photo opportunity waiting here.

[djg05478]

I quite like the intention of your image. She does look a little soft, but I think you could make this blurry background work, but in this case the flower near the right side of her head is too distinct and a little distracting. Perhaps if you could get it from an angle where the background was mostly just foliage, that might help. I think it has to go one way or the other, pretty gal surrounded by pretty flowers all in focus, or pretty gal in focus and blurry foliage background. Just my non technical 2 cents

[rob marshall]

I think her eyes are a little too low in the overall frame. The backdrop is quite wrong - too bright, too busy, and too much distracting colour. It always pays off to have a good think about the shot scene (without the camera in your hands) before you shoot it. The image of the model herself is good, but a little soft perhaps. She is very attractive. Is she a friend of yours?

[pono]

I see what you guys are saying about the background and those flowers. I did shoot at f1.4 to blur the background, but I wasn't thinking about her shoulders and stuff. I used a filter in PP to soften everything up, then put a layer mask on it and erased it around her eyes. I learned about it in class and thought I'd give it a try. Guess it didn't work.

I agree that the background may be too bright, but I think that the exposure for her face is fine. Right?I re did the image. Made a little tighter crop, and took off that filter. I guess it's another good excuse to hang out with her again!

[speedneeder]

I like the light on her hair and her shoulders. I would like to see more light on her face though. Perhaps a reflector would suffice for this? Typically backgrounds are left underexposed to make the subject 'pop'. I have seen several nice bright backgrounds though.