dudler

V3 for me...

For all versions I'd be tempted to clone out that stationery shop in the background: in colour, to get rid of the flash of blue on the right hand side.

The flash of lovley model on the left should not be distracted from!

This is just very slightly tilted - the lines in the glass are not parallel to the edges of the frame - though by the same amount on each side of the frame, so it's a matter of rotating a degree or so.

That said, it's a fine example of glamour, well psoed and framed, and nicely lit. Voteable!

Uncomfortably tight crop at the left and bottom: and the visual contact between the model's face and the IKEA chair back is a little distracting... Very glam, though, and impactful!

A fraction more space at the bottom, maybe? For TOTAL perfection...

That sound sense of composition again, and a beautifully natural and downbeat palette of colours...

With so much sky in the picture, a little plus exposure compensation could have worked - beware too much, though, and destroying the darker tones (or even making the sky too light!) Aroudn half a stop might be right in these circumstances.

This looks more processed than most of your pictures... And, possibly, the worse for that. Still lovely, though!

It's very hard to tell whether this is a young-looking late teenager, or whether it's a 12-year-old in a grown-up costume, which is slightly disturbing, I find.

There's a lovely composition here, and I'm voting for that.

It looks (even if it isn't, the look matters) as if the horizon is sloping around a degree down on the left.

And it looks like there's been very heavy processing, including burning in and sharpening. Nothing wrong with that - the secret, usually, is to do them without it showing much... I'd love to see a slightly less-processed variant!

Lovely shapes, and put together nicely.

I'd be REALLY tempted to do a high-contrast version myself: so much so that I've downloaded, tried, and it looks wonderful... Simple and graphic. Just moved the highlights slider in levels from the right hand side to a third of the way from the left. Try it!

A beautiful portrait of a powerful animal.

I notice that the (longish) lens was wide open, and the ISO was only 200. Ideally, I reckon, you'd have upped the ISO to 800, to allow a little stoppiong down, and maybe an even higher shutter speed: this isn't perfectly sharp, and a bit of noise (grain, I still think of it as) is far less of a price to pay than softness.

To put it in perspective: I've never taken an animal shot this good, so the criticism is minor!

The EXIF data there is suggests a compact or bridge camera, with a very short focal length and a limited maximum aperture.

As it goes, I don't think the limited depth of field is an issue, really - some of the moss is sharp, and the rest fades gently away, as things tend to in the sort of light i see in the picture.

However, I'd be tempted to make the whole thing darker and more moody: I've had a try, and it looks quite effective, darkening everything in levels, and burning in the corners (particularly top right).

While my PS work is never impressive, it may help get useful stuff by enabling modifications, so that the experts can upload their versions of your pictures.

I always enable this on my photos, and I often get lovely surprises when I see others' interpretations.

There's a lot of good stuff in this shot. However, it isn't totally successful - for me - because there are so many parts to it, and they don't add up to a unified whole.

First, the light on the face is lovely, if a little unconventional for a female model, with those shadows jsut under the eyes. Characterful - but this works really well, as the model is full of character. In particular, that split-light thing with the irises of her eyes is perfect!

And I think that a heasdshot would work completely. It's having the body and arms as well, without them adding anything in particular. They are not in the least ugly, but they divert focus from the face without adding to the story.

Wow! may be your best yet.

Really lovely light: great detail (that's the result of upping the ISO, and having both shutter speed and aperture at values that ensure sharpness. I'm amazed at the lack of grain, though. Excellent!)

I've tried a mod in levels, darkening the shadows and lightening the highlights: I don't think you need to lose all detail in the backdrop, but suppressing it a little definitely concentrates things on the model, who is lovely.

I'm not too worried about the neck - a trifle light, but it's picking up reflected light from the blouse, I think.

Scanners! The invention of the Devil!

They turn wonderful prints into mediocre digital images, and you need to do work on the result to get back, almost (on a good day) to where you started... That's my experience, anyway.

Rant over. Sorry.

A lot of careful detailing in this - the earrings, the aperture, exposure compensation: all good stuff. The composition is simple, and perfect.

Sharpness is questionable - I'm not sure how much of this is the softening, and how much the shallow depth of field and the difficulty of focussing a self-portrait (something I shy away from trying - and my looks are only a part of the reason...)

Other than resorting to the Victorian measures of chin-rests and neck-braces to get the focus right, I suspect you either need an assistant, or extended depth of field. And, if you stop down by 2 or 3 stops, I suspect that the standard zoom you're using will be better than it is at wider apertures... I note that you're using a really high-level camera that's a few years old, with a lens that I suspect may have cost about the same as the camera battery...

My tip for a birthday present, if anyone asks, is a 50mm f/1.8 or f/1.4 Nikon lens for portraits... There's a reason that all those old standard lenses that people were throwing out a few years back are selling for more secondhand than they did new: the quality is amazing by comparison with a zoom, and on an APS sensor they're a wonderful focal length for portraits. (When I was using APS-format cameras, my 50mm lens was the one I kept on as standard...)

Rather nice!

I'd be tempted both to bringten this (snow is white, even when the light is dim - does that make sense? This may have been how it was, but it probably looked brighter...), and to sharpen it (so that the snowflakes and noise look like old-school grain).

But I tend to do that sort of thing...

This has a lot going for it - and I think it could be even better.

First, the crop on the left is just fractionally too tight, leaving slivers of chair cut off. Second, it's taken from eye level (the seat and back of the chair show that very clearly, and the perspective on the model is indicative, too) - a lower viewpoint would make her legs longer in relation to her body, and her head slightly smaller (hell on the tog's knees, so I actually own workmen's kneepads for studio shoots).

Finally, this seems to me to cry out to be either a highkey shot, needing much more light on the model), or a silhouette, with rather less. I realise that's not easy in a group shoot, where you have to use the light that everyone else wants!

I've tried doing a mod, and though I've lost highlight detail on her tummy, it looks pretty good, I reckon.

You've got a really lovely range of tones here, so the mono did indeed work well!

There's certainly scope to refine how you compose pictures, in a couple of ways.

First, there's a standard idea (which you don't always need to follow, but it generally works reasonably well) that you should put the main centres of interest on the "thirds" - the four points in the image that are 1/3 of the way up/down/across the picture. These places are strong, and what is sitting on them is emphasised.

Here, if you had framed slightly to the left, the model's face would be on one of the thirds, approximately, and her arm reaching along to another one. If you'd cropped a little at the bottom, it would be pretty exact (and, more importantly, would look good!)

The other obvious thing is to be careful where you cut limbs off. You have one hand and two legs with feet out of frame. The legs are not an issue, as they're dark, and not very obvious in the picture, but the hand is. Cropping above the wrist would work, as would having hte hand entirely in the frame, possibly by having the model lay it along her hip.

These aren't Rules, never to be broken - but they're reasonable guidance, to break when you feel it benefits a picture. Sometimes, you do best by deliberately doing the opposite of the rules, of course.

It looks as if you've used a flashgun on the camera, giving very harsh shadows. The model's complexion is so good this doesn't matter - the facial tones are perfect - but often softening the light by bouncing it off a card, the ceiling or a purpose-made umbrella gives a gentler look.

And for those lovely tones, and the assured expression, my vote.

Bit of a wow factor here...

A lovely, natural-looking couples shot. Gentle and affectionate.

If i could change anything, I'd opt for a slightly higher viewpoint, so that the branch behind the heads encircles them, rather than being partly behind them.

This isn't really my kind of thing - either in PS, or even in the darkroom. However, the result in this case is rather lovely, so you have my vote.

Since you specifically asked for coments...

The light on the model is lovely, and the balance between her and the painting in the background is excellent. Similarly with the colour balance.

Bit of a problem with the candles, though. They look dim in a "darkened in PS" sort of a way (my guess is that they're electric candles, and that the bulbs were overexposed). Redoing that element, with real candles and lower relative exposure in camera would make it work far better (and it's not bad now). The problem is that if the candles are simply less bright than the main subject, there'd be loads of detail in the flames... I've shot by candlelight with both digital and film, and I know how easy it is to get exactly the effect you've got here.

An intriguing idea...

Lovely colour, and the central positioning between the washing machines is excellent.

Two suggestions:

1 can you move the pot plants so that the model's head is between them, as her body is between the machines? It would look much neater!

2 more obviously and seriously, it looks awkward to ahve the hands cut off like that. There are some points on the body that work as natural-looking cut-offs, but having part of the hand in frame and part not (almost) always looks untidy.

She's a lovely model, technicalities are excellent, and I hope you can (assuming you think it's a good idea) arrange a reshoot...

This is lovely in most ways, so utterly vote-worthy.

I have two queries in my mind.

First, from the waterfalls, it appears that there's a slight tilt to the left, which unsettles the classical elegance and the monumental solidity of the subject.

Second, I'm not sure that the building on the right adds to the composition: good framing, but maybe not necessary to the composition. I've tried a mod, and it feels like an improvement - I'd upload if it was possible - and if you'd like to see it, let me know an email address, and I'll send it along...

A wonderful start for someone who rates himself a "beginner"!