My Headshots. Any critique?

[krishouweling]

Hi everyone. I am new on this forum and hello! Two reasons why I joined:

1. To broaden my networking social skills.
2. To receive critique!

So, if anyone has an interested in seeing my Headshot work, and other work, please check out my website and send me an email. I feel positive about this work, but I am sure there is room for improvement.

http://www.houwelingphotography.com/

Cheers

~KRIS~

[Donald]

Kris

Hello and welcome to CiC.

I'm sure people will wish to have a look at your website. But for the purposes of offering comment and criticism that, I'm sure, will help you with your development in photography, you should post images onto CiC and ask specific questions that you want addressed. This helps other people provide relevant and focused comments.

[krishouweling]

Agreed! Ok, so here are three, not necessarily my best or worse, just random.

[Sahil]

Hi Kris,

Welcome to the forum. I saw a few pics on your website. I loved the one in which the girl is off to jump in the sea & her guy is holding her. But sad thing I can't see it for long as image changes pretty soon.
And we cannot see the images, you said you have posted. In case you have some problem posting pictures, check this thread.

[krishouweling]

Great, figured it out. Here are two. I have another 20 on my web page. I am currious to know what others may think because I am walking into this business and wonder if they are meeting the standards. With that said, in the area's that are not the best I will improve. And with feeback. For lighting I use reflectors only. And for gear most recently my lens has been the Canon 135mm 2L lens, with the Canon 5d Mark II.

Thanks again!

~KRIS~

#1


#2

[Ricco]

Kris,

I'm no expert by any means but the reason I thought I'd chip in is because I've picked up the exact issue with some of my portraits.

If you look at the boys shot - the depth of field is way to thin. His face is sharp but the rest isn't. Similar to you I have a 100mm lens and when shooting at low aperture values, you will end up with a razor thin depth of field of only centimeters (if that). In both these shots, because of that issue, a lot of the picture is blown out of focus.

To my eye this works when you have a close crop say with just the face, but when over half your image is out of focus, it doesn't work (unless of course if that is what you are trying to achieve - always personal preference rules here and that is just mine). My next step is to work on portraits with a smaller focal length lens around 50mm and a bit more aperture and hence more depth of field.

Anyhow, just my 2 cents.

Peter.

[Geoff F]

I agree with Peter's comments plus, I think both photos could take a tiny amount of extra brightness; but don't overdo the background.

And a personal opinion, unless it is a close head crop, I would sooner see the top of a head than an uninteresting lower area. Which I think would work with these photos.

But I am more of a bug man that a portrait photographer and all in all these photos are quite good.

[krishouweling]

Thanks guys. I see where I need to brighten up some of my photos, also where I could improve by not cropping the top of the head. The only thing about using the 50mm for headshots is it's to wide. If you got close to your subject it would distort their features, slightly yes but still. The 135mm is also slightly challenging to hold still and just focus on the corner of the eye.

Thanks for the feedback. Another question. Sometimes my photo's are out of focus even though I was focusing carefully on the eyes. Could the eyelashes make it out of focus?

[Ricco]

Kris - there is a depth of field calculator under the tutorials section.

Short answer is yes - it is possible. If you are doing a really close crop with a 135mm lens (i.e. you are really close to the subject), you could be working with millimeters depth of field.

Have a play with the calculator which should give you the info you are after. It really helped me.

[Colin Southern]

also where I could improve by not cropping the top of the head.

Hi Kris,

Cropping the head is a very popular technique, and is perfectly acceptable these days. If you check the covers of women's magazines, approx 1/2 have the top of the head cropped to some degree.

It's usually a technique used to increase the impack of a portrait - so if you do use it, don't have too much showing at the other "end" of the shot.

[arith]

I don't know how to criticise so I'll just say I like your lamps shot, the steps with shadows, the sepia woman in head dress; well just about all of them with the interesting colour theme and blur throughout.

Nice technique of putting more than one pose into a photo. Cheers