Snow Day - Practicing Portraits

[theantiquetiger]

Thats right, we have snow days down here in Louisiana. Granted, it didn't snow, but it sleeted all day yesterday and has not been above freezing since Monday night. all roads and stores are closed. City is shut down until at least tomorrow morning.

My wife wants some BW portraits of the girls

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7328/12208257733_55507abbc7_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/theantiquetiger/12208257733/)
morgan portrait1 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/theantiquetiger/12208257733/) by Theantiquetiger (http://www.flickr.com/people/theantiquetiger/), on Flickr

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5511/12208458414_b3903dae9b_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/theantiquetiger/12208458414/)
maddy portrait1-2 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/theantiquetiger/12208458414/) by Theantiquetiger (http://www.flickr.com/people/theantiquetiger/), on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7384/12209319246_1ac158a0cc_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/theantiquetiger/12209319246/)
maddymorgan portrait1 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/theantiquetiger/12209319246/) by Theantiquetiger (http://www.flickr.com/people/theantiquetiger/), on Flickr

[Marko]

Here's my take:
1 - it's too blue/selenium for my taste and bottom right edge looks odd. Portrait is cute though!
2 - feels underexposed overall. The face is dark and we are losing detail in the blacks.
3 - pretty cute overall but there are weird brushmarks at bottom right, bottom left and upper right. The background and the blond cutie did not receive enough light.

Position of fill light seems too low to me.

An easy tip for lighting the bkgd is to leave at least 5-6 feet between subject and background. The further that distance is, the easier it is to light the background and control it.
Hope that may help

[theantiquetiger]

Here's my take:
1 - it's too blue/selenium for my taste and bottom right edge looks odd. Portrait is cute though!
2 - feels underexposed overall. The face is dark and we are losing detail in the blacks.
3 - pretty cute overall but there are weird brushmarks at bottom right, bottom left and upper right. The background and the blond cutie did not receive enough light.

Position of fill light seems too low to me.

An easy tip for lighting the bkgd is to leave at least 5-6 feet between subject and background. The further that distance is, the easier it is to light the background and control it.
Hope that may help

The first one did have a weird thing going on in the bottom right from the vignette.

Here is the color version, processed a little different

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3834/12210089765_8738e89193_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/theantiquetiger/12210089765/)
morgan color portrait (http://www.flickr.com/photos/theantiquetiger/12210089765/) by Theantiquetiger (http://www.flickr.com/people/theantiquetiger/), on Flickr

[Runmonty]

AT- I pretty much agree with Marko but make the following couple of additional comments.

Firstly I think these are great shots, and the only changes I would tweak are in the processing.

1. - Agree a bit too selenium & the white vignette doesn't quite look right. I think the problem with the selenium tones in this shot is in the highlights. If you really wanted the selenium colour, could I suggest you only apply it to the darker tones rather than the whites?. More of a split tone effect perhaps?

2. - Initially I agreed with Marko but I there is something funny going on with the way this is displaying on this board. I thought I would have a play and see what detail I could bring out of the blacks. When I cut and pasted in Photoshop everything was already there and exposure was fine. I don't know if it is the white background here or something else. I do think however that the whites in this shot are bit muddy and could be improved with a levels play moving the white slider to the left.

3. - Really like this but agree the white vignette inst quite right.


Marko is far more able to comment constructively on the lighting, so I will defer to him on this one.