|
| Group |
Round |
C/R |
Comment |
Date |
Image |
| 49 |
Jun 22 |
Reply |
Well, one more thing. I really like how the soft predawn light brought out the topography so well. |
Jun 15th |
| 49 |
Jun 22 |
Comment |
Jo-Ann, a very powerful image about the relationship between the mother and daughter, perfectly communicated. The confident young girl relaxed in the enfolding circle of her mom's arm, the fact that both dresses are blue, and the shallow depth of field that separates the girl, and to a lesser extent her mom,from the crowd, tell a universal story.
The brightness of the background and especially of those fancy ballroom lights can be toned down to highlight the 2 subjects further, That's what I did in my edit. |
Jun 10th |
 |
| 49 |
Jun 22 |
Comment |
Wonderful photo! But-
But, I've got nothin'. It's a wonderful photo! |
Jun 10th |
| 49 |
Jun 22 |
Comment |
A good attempt at glamour and aan excellent choice of costume and pose.
Please understand that I make these comments from bitter and hard-won experience. Some suggestions for improvement.
1. I have never seen a photo studio with a couch I'd want to bring home! Most photographers buy them at the bargain room at the local Goodwill. That explains the drape over the couch, but it is way too wrinkly on the left side near the model's arm. If your ironing skills are as bad as mine, I would suggest selecting that supporting area and applying a blur, after using the magic healing brush to remove the large crease next to the rose.
2. Although the model's features are symmetrical and attractive, her face and eyes are wide set, and her nose and lips are wider than normal. Using a normal or wider focal lengths only makes the problems more visible. A longer focal length helps overcome these difficulties. My favorite portrait lens on my APS-C Nikon is 90 mm, which is the equivalent of a 135mm on a full-frame. Because of your lighting limitations, you may have felt the need for a wider lens. You'd need to increase the ISO to get back far enough.
3. The lighting may be a further factor in the facial structure issue. Judging from the shadows on the collar bones, the soft box seems to be only a foot or two higher than the camera lens. To get the correct modeling, it should be about 4 ft. higher than the lens axis. The increased modeling would have accentuated the cheekbones and made the nose more aquiline. The soft box should be roughly the size of the image being photographed and as close as possible to the area to prevent harshness due to falloff. So for a 3/4 length photo like this, you'd need a 4 ft. x 5 ft. softbox to get the full effect. My go-to is a pair of Paul C. Buff 6 ft. diameter translucent umbrellas, used as shoot-through diffusers. They're easy to carry and set up.
It looks like the the photo is lit from camera right, which provides distracting shadows on the roses, the supprt and her right arm. I'd use a 42" white reflector to provide fill.
Hope these comments prove helpful.
|
Jun 10th |
| 49 |
Jun 22 |
Comment |
An excellent spontaneous photo that captures the exuberance of the young performer. And I sympathize with the challenges of the venue.The lighting is harsh and the extreme falloff of the spotlighting detracts from the brightness you expect from ice.
I chose to let art assist nature:
1. I used the new "select Subject" feature in Photoshop. the inverted the selection so I was working on the background.
2. I used Curves to apply a basket curve pinning the 25% and 75% points so it only applied to the midtones.
3. I re-inverted the image and used a soft edge brush to select the lower half of the image up to the skater's outstretched arms. The I "re-re-inverted" the image so that the top half of the background was selected.
5. In blur gallery, I added an 8 px field blur to simulate focus blur. I then did an overall lightening of the selection in Saturation/Lightness.
Although this sounds complex, the actual correction took 4 minutes to perform.
I hope you find this useful. |
Jun 10th |
 |
| 49 |
Jun 22 |
Comment |
This is a great record photo, but perhaps there's too much boat and not enough dragon? I think it might have have been nice to raise the camera slightly to just under the paddle being held by the man on the left, which would have cropped out the distracction of the two women in the front row/ If the camera was raised high enough, you might have caught the dragon prow of the second boat, which would have intensified the dragon concept. |
Jun 10th |
| 49 |
Jun 22 |
Comment |
Please ignore the white area on the right. I mistakenly sent the photo formatted for my printer, which needs to print 11x14 paper as an 11 x 17. Here's what it is supposed to look like. |
Jun 10th |
 |
6 comments - 1 reply for Group 49
|
6 comments - 1 reply Total
|
