Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition
by Alecia

Comment by DrJOnes:
Hi buddy. I say buddy, 'cause I also submitted a swimsuit photo this challenge. Just thought I'd give you some pointers. First, you got yourself a great model. She has a nice pose. Could be better with another expression, maybe a tiny smile, but it's ok. Techniqualy, here's what you could do to improve it. First and foremost, change your focal lengh to reduce the depth of field. F5.6 will yield the best results, giving a nice focus on the model, and a very soft blur to the background. As soon as you start doing that, you'll improve you bathing suit shots by 50%. Next, use a flash. The flash can be mounted on your camera, but idealy, use an extension cord for your flash and have someone hold it for you on your side. The flash is being used to "fill the shadows". This means, reducing the contrast between the shadows and the highlights on your model. This will allow you to expose for the light areas without loosing detail in the dark areas- because the flash will light these up. You'll end up with a model being very well lit, with nice colors. Your setup is good, using the sun's light as a backlight. It's good to have the sun behind so your model doesn't squint her eyes too much. Unfortunately, in this shot, your model seems to have a hard time with the hard light and she's squinting her eyes. You can ask her to keep her eyes shut, and countdown before taking the shot. This way, she will open her eyes when you shoot and you'll loose the squinting effect. Last but not least, you might want to reconsider the crop of this photo and crop it a littlebit closer to the model, especially on the left side (maybe remove half of the negative space on the left). That's about it... I gave you a 6, but I beleive you had all the elements to pull off a 9 (with a littlebit more experience and the tips I gave you above). Hope I was of some help. Take care. DrJOnes. PS. Oh, by the way, congrats on taking a chance... shots with "sexyness" in them are usually not very well received on DPChallenge. Just know that you'll never win with a sexy shot, even if it's a very good sexy shot... Mine this week isn't doing very well, but has all the elements to be a top cover shot. People at DPChallenge tend to prefer very basic things- nothing too controversial. Women in bikinis are not well rated by the women and the prudes on DPChallenge.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition
by Alecia

Comment by gilesletheren:
Great pose, great model but needs better light on the front of the model.

Casual Friday
by Alecia

Comment by jgal76:
you may get voted down for not being in an office, but i like it. Good idea and well executed

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition
by Alecia

Comment by jillz:
Nice shot, pretty choice of subject matter. It's too bad her face isn't in the light.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition
by Alecia

Comment by clues56:
I personally oppose women being used in this manner, but for this contest, I g ive this an 8. If the face were not shadowed it would be a higher mark. (Beautiful young woman who could be doing better things. - imho)

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition
by Alecia

Comment by pncowley:
I could definitely see this on the cover... A couple of small issues you could address and improve the shot would be the blown-out crests of the breaking waves and the dark shadow across your model's face. While the highlight issue is a bit more difficult to address, you could possibly use a bit of fill flash to fix the problem with the shadows.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition
by Alecia

Comment by briphoto:
Very nice (hot!) model. Very questionable composition, there isn't room for the title at the top. The lighting on the left side of her body isn't good.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition
by Alecia

Comment by rj324:
Nice, perfect pose, but would have preferred a little more light on her face. Great job! 7

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition
by Alecia

Comment by jodiecoston:
Not bad - lovely model, nice pose, good composition - the only that that I think could improve this would be a reflector to bounce a little fill light onto her face. But actually quite a good shot. Most shots I see like this wind up looking very ameteurish, but you've done quite well.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition
by Alecia

Comment by alanfreed:
Wow! Just a teeny bit grainy, but sure meets the challenge well! Great model! My only gripe would be that the lighting could have been a little better -- obviously I don't know whether you used any sort of reflecter, but that may have helped brighten some of the shadow areas, and bring out more skin tone in her face.