Carla 2
by HRoxas

Comment by noseprints:
this is a great tone and i like the composition a lot. her eyes are somewhat closed, but i think it works. it's a great strong pose. it grabs you.

Carla 2
by HRoxas

Comment by monkeysee:
I like this the best because of the unusual pose.... and you applied perfect dof! I don't know how to describe it, but it has more of an impact to me.

carla_1A
by HRoxas

Comment by monkeysee:
I prefer this than Carla_1. I find that I keep tilting my head when looking at Carla_1. Although I showed both to my co-worker, and he likes Carla_1 better. So I think it's subjective :-). I like the crop... and the tones that you have going in this pic.

Carla 2
by HRoxas

Comment by KevinRiggs:
Henry,

Here’s what you want! You got this one. You nailed it.

What makes this composition better than Carla_1 is the focus on the model, the pose, the depth of tones, your cropping and the background.

In this photo you have created the incredibly important non-visual element of separation. Separation for a portrait is something that doesn’t show up like an umbrella or the dress the subject wears; it is something that deceives the viewer and drags them into looking at what you think is important in the composition. You nailed it here. You left the viewer no options other than to feast their eyes on your subject. Even the surrounding elements hold no enticement for a viewer. They are darker and have less definition than your subject. This is a wonderful execution.

The pose is just a good pose here because it all fits in the frame (that right elbow intersects but we’ll give you that one on such a good shot). Normally you don’t want a female model to display her knuckles as viewers tend to view this negatively. In your shot it doesn’t detract because you’ve converted it to quadtones and the knuckles are no lighter in color than the face (and the face here gives more than enough for a viewer to spend time looking at). The arms create beautiful lines that become easy for a viewer to follow down . . . and right back up towards the subject’s face. Hmmm, maybe you’ve chosen to have the face as the principle element in this . . . ya think?!?

However you captured this lighting-wise you got a good photo that was helped by the depth of tones you can deliver to the viewer. We can see texture in the subject’s body and you don’t lose definition in the model’s clothing. I can see slight ripples in the center of the top (between the model’s arms) but they aren’t distracting; they just serve to give some texture or depth when my eyes begin to wander from the model’s face. The texture of the hair is awesome. I love that you can see the lines and strands throughout the hair. I’m with Gordon on the catchlights. They would be helpful here as your model’s eyes are slightly closed but I don’t think that a flash unit would give you want you want; I think a reflector might maintain the even tones you’ve captured and you would end up with some catchlights in the subjects eyes (if the light from the reflector was a little too much you could always speed up the shutter just a hair and the only thing you’d lose is a little definition in the darker tones which you could just dodge later). Very nice work.

The cropping on this shot is superior to Carla_1 because you got all the pertinent elements within the frame and left nothing to distract the viewer. I mentioned the elbow earlier; to hell with it. Forget it. This is a much cleaner composition. I like the room you left at the top because the model’s body continues to extend down past the line of the photo and you couldn’t “give more room” at the bottom without including more of her torso which I think would just diffuse the impact that this composition already has.

The background is nice in the photo for two reasons: you blurred it the heck out (great DoF) without losing all the definition in it and its consistent. At this distance from the model the 24-70 f/2.8 (and I’m assuming it was wide open on this shot) gives just enough of a narrow plane of focus so that the model is totally in focus (from the nose on her face to the farthest element of her body that we can view) while the background isn’t. In this shot (as opposed to Carla_1) you have moved your subject away from the background and allowed the large aperture to lend its effect to the photo. I don’t think a 70-200 f/2.8 would have achieved this shot with the same depth as the 24-70 (the longer the lens, the flatter the photo). Even the difference in the brick and what appears to be concrete in the background at the bottom of the photo doesn’t detract for me.

Overall this is a fantastic photo. I think you can be proud of this image. If you intentionally set everything up this way then congratulations for getting it. If you think you lucked into it then all I know to say is at least you had the eye for capturing a great shot.

Hope this eval helps.

Kev

carla_1A
by HRoxas

Comment by KevinRiggs:
Henry,

Of the two shots Carla_1 (even rotated) is the weaker. The reason IMO is the angle of approach to the model, the pose, the cropping and the background. On the angle of approach, based on the model's movements, you're shooting up into her face, which causes her chin knows to be prominent and flattens her face. It also creates deep shadows on the neck.
One of this model’s strong attributes IMO is her well-proportioned facial features which are suited by being framed by her hair. In this pose her hair is pulled back from one side and flat on the other (over her right ear). Never mind that this can look odd on any subject (one side behind the ear and the other side in front of the ear), on this model it detracts IMO from giving her lovely face a frame in which to set its classical beauty. Coupled with the angle of approach (which is something you can control) is the subject’s pose (which is generally something she controls unless you pose her). In this composition she is turned at the waist. This can be a wonderful move and I’m sure you can capture it well so I have no problem with that. The problem for me comes in how we don’t see the full turn (see cropping later). It also comes in how her she places her left hand behind her ear (which also has an earring in it that doesn’t add to the composition and isn’t offset; it’s a single element that isn’t strong enough to add much but is strong enough to detract given its placement. Because the arm forms a left darker area, it continues the coloration that moved up the subject’s body from the lower left of the frame. That’s a good thing. It sets a nice backdrop against which her lightened face becomes the point of interest. The problem here is that the subject’s left hand is turned so that it catches light and competes with the face. This is exacerbated by the loss of her fingers. If the hand didn’t compete with the face (by being lighter than the hair and skintones around it) or if all the fingers were visible (generally not as appealing) then the viewer wouldn’t be drawn to this area as much and could linger on the face. Now the earring I mentioned before comes into play. Since the viewer’s gaze seems to travel down the lighter face towards the hand, the viewer’s mind notices that the fingers are abbreviated and that the ear makes some odd connection (in skintone) with the index finger. This becomes slightly more confusing and the earring being a hard outlined, shiny object just adds to the disorientation. IMO this area (due to lighting and the outline of the subject’s hairline) becomes slightly more impacting that just a “nit” because it diffuses the interest of the viewer by being so close to the model’s face and being slightly disorienting visually. Perhaps if her head was resting lightly on the palm of her hand and her hair hung free down past her ear on her left side then the lack of symmetry would be offset by the strong visual element that her dark hair lends to her face would create a photo that displayed her beauty better.
The cropping in this shot also doesn’t help the strength of the image. . While you got the model’s head in the frame and showed terrific ability to capture different tones throughout the composition and the model’s body (great job on that, btw), you’ve cropped the model’s hand in a distracting manner. The inclusion of just a little thigh where the leg actually becomes difficult to distinguish is distracting, too. I don’t know that you can recrop this image to produce a stronger shot as far as the bottom of the photo goes, perhaps this is just a crop from a larger composition. If so, then I’d suggest trying a couple of different crops but don’t but into the hand and don’t crop at the wrist if you can help it.
Finally I find the background to be a weaker element of this composition in some sections of the photo. The floor just under the model is well-captured and displays those levels of tones that I mentioned you getting earlier. This is a pleasant view of this background and it doesn’t detract from your composition at all. The top section of the photo, however, becomes contentious with your subject due to the hard, straight lines in the top left of the photo and the bright light directly behind the subject’s head and extending to the right corner. I’m not sure what you could do here as these elements (the strong lines and bright spot) could be important elements to a photo; they could lend some emphasis to a photo so I’m not saying that they’re bad to use in general. In this photo, though, you have a subject in a more classical beauty pose where her face appears to be the strongest element (or the one you wanted to present the most) and her body is well-captured and presented through the use of multi-toned treatment where you maintained the definition of her skin and clothing throughout the tones. A subdued background looks like it would lend itself to the look of the model and the way you edited it.

Kev

Botany Out-take
by HRoxas

Comment by monkeysee:
I LOVE THIS!!! Very strong graphically... colours are great... pin sharp... I don't know what else to say... :-)

Inning Over
by HRoxas

Comment by KiwiChris:
The lighting on this is great, and the wee figure/model is wonderfully detailed, well done on both counts if you made the model!

Inning Over
by HRoxas

Comment by Hye5:
I really like this one... good lighting and I like the shadows. Excellent execution of a good idea!

B
by HRoxas

Comment by Natator:
Beautiful. Some blur maybe bottom left, hide the "dust" but otherwisw perfect

Inning Over
by HRoxas

Comment by Pixel Lady:
Fantastic!