Hello Wimpy. Your picture has a professional feel and a professional model.

I don't mind the awkward angle actually now I am looking at the picture again I understand I would need to mention something else also. Lines.

Colour is my major issue here. It blends with the issue of lighting you have used. The model has a beautiful, even skin colour which has reflected light in a pleasing way in most areas. There are just a few really dark shadows on the top of the right thigh and the torso side and a bit in the arms. But black underwear on wood floor with the heavy shadow of the bed cover despite the preesence of other dark/black furniture around the room, although they convey a night feeling, don't have the striking contrast they could have if the model was actually on the bed, you could have the neck and the head leaning out of the mattress edge. Since you worked with one light why not use the colour and the space available to bring up the luminocity of the picture. The lingerie used although a bit transparent on the torso area, seems black altogether seperating the model in two havles. A bra/panties combination could have allowed visible skin to hold the body continuity and could be as non provoking.
The pose could be diagonal, making use of the frame's longest distance from bottom left corner to top right corner accommodate her long legs. The current pose introduces many lines and along with the lines from the room furniture, they point all over the place, which is rather confusing. Where do your eyes go when you see this picture? My eyes seemed to be attracted on the bright area near her feet, too far away from her eyes. As a result eye contact is minimal, she could be looking up the ceiling or admiring her legs.

I hope my understanding helped you grasp the issues that your picture poses. Low key lighting concept is in this link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-key_lighting

bye from me
pablophotographer

















9

Hi, I think a reflector from the left would brighten her face a bit, the difference of light from right side to left is quite big. Alternatively, she could have looked the other way so her face would look brighter, and take the same pose with the other hand.

Hi
Really nice study. I think you should check the live view on the back when composing, not all viewfinders give 100% view of field. You can crop for left slightly so the pic is balanced. The hard way would be to erase the back ground cars, cut a thin sclice from the left, copy, invert, and apply on the right.

Hi lawbert!

Beautifully lit this time, I love how the shadow looks like, despite the light reflection at the glass in area between 25 minutes past to 30 past

Bad news now

Of course I don't mean this in a bad way

I think what you would need to turn your attention to now is to concentrate how do you want the chain to be positioned, consider this an aesthetics matter. Should the watch look like hanging from a vest's buttonhole? T bar on left top chain going straight down and then turning to the right creating a downward bow and the watch be hanging from there? Do you have a vest to attach it on and shoot the watch with the vest filling all the frame? Should the T bar be on top left side and the chain to go diagonally to the bottom right corner? Should you shoot this on a vertical frame and shoot the watch in a sequence of positions as if being hung and used to hypnotise you? I am just thinking ... now you have the lighting right, you can challenge your creativity! I hope the results surprise you as much as us

kindly
pablophotographer

Congratulations!

I do like the picture you have taken regardless of its weak parts. I must say that when people say that they like or dislike a picture they hardly take consideration of the camera used to shoot it with. \You have a capable phone indeed but it is you that you shoot the picture, the camera sensor just records what you aim at.

the picture has a mystery, "what is it that your friend is looking at?" - probably his own mobile.
I don't mind about the missing part of his left hand. The heck, his tie and sideburns and the distant wall-lightlamp are fantastic. What I could do if I had the means to manipulate the image? Just crop most part of the back room on the right side.

Done!
pablophotographer

hello hoang

I like the picture you have shot, really nice clothes, model and background. My only reservation is on the white panel/door on the left I think as detail is overblown and as in colour it doesn't match the rest of the scene. Talking about colours I would suggest a black and white version to see how this door/panel comes out, you may bring the grey up to match the wallpaper colour you will have at the back.

Although the colours of the original are not vibrant, the picture is pleasing. Aw I have just noticed you could do a crop to take most of the panel/door out, you are left with a smiling young lady in between rooms, would the viewer follow her? You bet!

voted
pablophotographer

Hi,
Excellent shot regarding to framing.
The weather wasn't great for a more awesome picture, it would benefit from blue skies....
I would have preferred the man to be a priest or to be wearing a local costume to be honest but when you are a tourist you may have a very tight schedule, you can take him out if you want, software can take care of the matter if you feel his presence is annoying' on teh other hand his proportions give us a guidance to appreciate the size of the temple, how do they say? "there is no bad without some good".

Hi.

Are the lens setting details the original ones? how did you manage to save them?

I find the work on her face pleasing, it's shot right. No harsh shadows or overblown areas.
The skin appears to be a little bit pink but suppose this was shot after she had spent some time in the sunshine, there is nothing wrong with natural, on the contrary, this looks like a "genuine" work, if I can call it that way.

If this was shot in a non dedicated studio, and at her background there was a curtain, I suppose it should have been stretched out rather than have the pleats that create these two lines at the back, is it a picture breaker? No, but you can still remove them. I would have accepted them if she was shot. with the background taking a more substantial role - Michelle in her livingroom, but then again I would have taken a wider picture than now amd include shoulders and some features from the house.

For me, the think that puzzles me is why you have shot a landscape frame in the first place, when the background was goig to be so..... void. Or why you didn't use a wider focal length to show the rest of the neck and chest, or one as tight but with a vertical orientation. I tried to see the image in a square format that contains most of her hair but still crops some on the right but I am not sure it makes such a dramatic improvement. As Moira suggests, you have the option of black and white too... for me it looks suitable for such a conversion.

If you still have your film camera, andyou are a fan of fuji, I'd suggest you to try the Reala film.

Pablophotographer

Hello Ade;

you take much better pictures than I do but what I will say here is not something which plays dpwn your good skills.
It is my understanding and it is given with good intentions.

You have orchestrated 3 lights and that it takes good understanding of space. Face, foreground and background are lit and each light allows a good space for some darkness in between, which in turn, helps creating the sense of space at a trully 3 dimensional perception.

The picture could to my humble opinion gain more impact if closer attention was paid in composition and details. Composition-wise, I see you have followed the Rule of Thirds and the dancer is on the edge of the first and second vertical third of the picture. I am just making this remark here without making any judgement on it, per se. I see also that you have allowed the last third from left to be used as foreground which introduces to us the urban space, the graffitti and the demolished electrical switch box. I shall be critical on the use of this third. Was it really necessary, to the viewer to see all of these elements? i would have just let a tiny proportion of the wall to allow her hand to placed against as support. Tiny as much of either one time the space from her thumb until the wall acme, a dark thin line next to the bright one or a bit more as half brick, which allows some of the graffitti to be seen.

And then I would turn my attention to the left side of the image.
I can see something just outside and above her face which in the beginning I thought it was a bit of a single stray hair , which may be the case when you work with background lights sometimes. My first thought was to suggest you to tone it down or erase it, it doesn't offer anything to the face and the picture apart from distraction. But as the saying goes, "if you can't beat them, work with them" and my suggestion would be to take maximum advantage of this stray face like line in the background. How? By re-arranging her pose.

I would have asked her to raise her arm in a way so as the elbow and the shoulder are leveled. To stretch the neck, lift her chin and look at her hand which points upwards in a very classic dancing pose, which i don't know how it is named. Dancers get that triumphant pose some times, it shows strong self-esteem and pride, I am sure she knows how to pose for it, and it matches her knowledge of the hard work she has done over the years, and which we witness in her lean muscle.

I note also that she takes an "S pose" by bending one knee while keeping the other leg stretched. I know that my suggestion for the upper body pose doesn't go very well with the "S pose" (and that the frame has moved a bit to the left now) so I would have asked her to move her hips towards the wall, not away from it as she does now. Thus an illusion coud be made as if her arm, body contour and wall crete a triange, turning the picture 90 degrees to the right, she would look as if she stands in one hand or if a different face expression was adopted as if she dances (hip hop? breakdance? you name it).

I know that you have shown her legs (but not enough flesh to distinguish the toned athletic muscles there) so I may had cropped the flesh and keep only the trousers to keep the balance of thirds but to a horizontal rather than vertical orientation.

I think I have not forgot anything from what I wanted to say.
It is a strong black and white picture and I admit i would keep the same approach as well.

Kind regards.

Hi,

forgive me for asking but, why is the top part of this cologne bottle not seen?
I think your picture could look more neat if all of the spray mechanism was within the limits of the frame,
allow for some space around the object you shoot, unless the theme is such that it would benefit to start from the edge of the frame;
for examlpe
imagine your frame starts
here and you have a

train engine appearing pulling lots and lots and lots and lots of big wagons behind it

but for your image you should have all of the oblect visible
ot just most for part of it....

the N is omitted on purpose

Hi,
It's a good concept to work on. I am not sure if you have noticed that there is an asymmetry on the sides of the arch pillars, I think you should have contained more of the arch pilllar on the left. That said I think it leans also a bit to the right side. I also think that you could have tried to contain the top of the arch, as this was the maximum your lens could take, you could make just half a step back and it would probably fit in. I do not mind about the shadow in the bottom left corner, as shadows exist elsewhere also, good proof of a sunny day! As I don't know which Queen you talk about, I will make myself a story that contains a female magician since the view from the window looks magic!

Hi, I prefer this to previous works to be honest. I think since she is off-centre a vertical 3:2 frame could do the job better if the projector allowed it, I like that we can see her face clearly here, but I might had forgone some space for hair on top with space for elbow on the bottom since as naked and reflective area could display the projected image better. Overall colours are pleasing as well.

Hi, I think it has escaped your attention but yu should be proud for the fact the watch glass has no reflection from the flashes you used to light the scene. Did you use a soft box? were the spedlights difused? Your intention should be to light the area where the watch is rather than to light the watch itself. Another thought, since the watch has a white face.... have you thought of a black barckground (not shinny though!) ? It would help the shadows you see now to become invinsible.

hello and welcome to EPZ.

I see this is your first upload, I find it good as a first attempt. I believe here in the critique gallery, we don't talk about the camera you used to shoot, we talk about the end result which is the picture.

For me, two of the most important things about a photograph are the framing and the lighting. I don't find any huge faults on any of the two, but I shall talk about them later. I must suggest that when you upload an image to scroll down the page and choose to display the data of the picture, so people can know and make suggestions on what you could change and make your picture better. I know there are several software programmes to manipulate a picture but remember the better it is in the first place, the less you will need to manipulate it, the more time you will have for taking pictures!

As I don't know what camera you have used and what types of frames (3:2, 4:3, 16:9, 1:1) it can shoot the only think I can say about framing is that it looks right, an alternative (if your camera could do it) would be a square frame, 1:1 as you may see it in the settings. You caan crop it again, if you want, as it is strong enough to convey the message of the person meditating(?)
Lighting seems ok to me, someone may say it may be just a bit too bright and the flesh on the nise, where the light falls, seems to be washed out a bit. Again a manipulation software can adjust that you can play with exposure. My computer is broken down and I don't have one on the laptop I am using. It could be just an adjustment on exposure you have to do.
Focusing is another issue and here it is where we would need to have the metadata to know what has happened and what settings did you use. I suspect you used a wide aperture so some of the parts of the face are less sharp. But how wide is teh aperture has to do with the lighting situations and the place you are at the moment when you take the picture. Was the background really dark? You need to say more about your picture, was it taken inside a temple, for example? were you allowed to use flash? If it was too dark and you could not stabilize the camera, yes you had no other option but to keep aperture wide open.
The colours are recorded fine, the light ones look vibrant and the dark, really dark.

Well done

Hi Ian,

I think you have got a better picture now, the seconds hand is stopped, and - don't kill me for this - the white band, although prominent, resembles the TommyH Logo in its horizontal = shape. The watch could have been moved slightly upwards so the = light shape falls between 8 and 10 zone rather than 9 and 11. When previously you had told me you had one light above the TAG watch, I thought that because of the shadows the light came form right and above the watch (but somehow outside the critical circle of the watch glass/sapphire crystal). Polarising filters can reduce glass reflection, but it is best to keep the light source away of reflective surfaces. Use a table lamp with tilting head and avoid directing the light on the watch. Follow this link to see how they shoot glass:
http://www.tabletopstudio.com/documents/glass_photography.htm#diffuse

See how you can replicate the effect without buing the soft box, actually you can create one like this guy did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6NipIxmqWE

Hi, I am not sure of the lighting that came from the top and created the background light area is reflected on the crystal of the watch, it gives the impression that it has 4 big hands, is the time 20 to 12 plus 30 minutes past 11? The small time hand seems to show something close to 12, there is also this possibility of the time to be 3 minutes to 12?

In most cases the hands are shot in an angle to create something like a superficial smile like 10 minutes past 10 if shot vertically, as here. And if shot horizontally I would suggest a different setting like 5 minutes past 5 so the "smile" is perceived correctly.

I can also distinguish another source of lighting form the right, that has created at the background a shape similar to the watch, good idea

It has taken you quite some time to prepare it I suppose, let alone to shoot it. So, I don't feel well by saying that the rotating bezel is normally set at harmony with the hour indicators inside, starting point is expected to be at 12 o'clock, unless you shoot a long exposure and indicate the time counting going on...

But for 17 changes of focus, stacking and aligning in one frame, you are "spot-on" as they say, bravo.

Hello Emmanuel.
Do not worry about mistakes, they are part of learning. Usually, the feeling you have as you first look at the picture is both raw and right.
Yes, you could have done better and I wish you to do so soon.
A white wall is not a bad start for a studio, but make sure that the model doesn't place herself/hi,self close to the wall because the shadow will be too visible as it has happened here. Of course you could try some portraiture with creative shadows, but then, keep all of teh shadow of the body revealed in the photo inside your frame as well.
Then your lighting will be the next issue. If you use one flash (in the absence of natural light coming from a window) try not to have the flash pointing directly on the subject. Imagine light as water thrown to her ba a plastic hose. She is too wet (and not very happy). If you would difuse it though, as if you had put on the hose a spray gun, instead of making her really wet and pissed off you would have make ker moist and happier than before. Make teh light flatter her. Spray/difuse it around her coming from various directions even if it comes from a single source. Tilt the flash gun to the ceiling so it doesn't go directly on her. You can use also a reflective surface like aluminium foil (from the less shiny side) or a white wall, or a sheet to sent back to her some of the light your sole source of light throws at her.
Last, conside your model's clothing, make up and posture. Here, the hands take a position that I fail to understand what it may suggest. But if she was smiling (why not?) I would think that she holding between her hands an invisible string that pulled her lipps to smile, if her hands were slightly higher I mean.
But for the end I have kept you the best. I find that her posture matches the shape of the frame well. It is a great starting point, you know.

hello Phantom,

I see you admire airplanes. I do not know the model but it must be old to be in a museum
I note with pleasure the little part of the propeller appearing, it shows that the airplane is not an old jet so... for me its inclusion is beneficial from a encyclopedian knowledge aspect.

The green tank is very much of an information which devalues the prime subject of your frame. It doesn't steal the show but it just doesn't seem to correspond and interact with the airplane.

So my question is what was at your side (not seen in the picture) that prevented you to shoot the airplane from the side that the tank was? I have serious doubts if your interest was the airplane or the Union Jack flag painted on the airplane Your text seems to give a hint

As I have mentioned in my blog I understand that when we look at something we seem to be attracted to the light, as primitive people would feel secure in a lighted area rather than a dark one. The light trails seen on the floor show you could have shot the plane from the side of the tank as light comes from the left back side also.

Also I would like to suggest you if you ever visit the place again or you find yourself in a situation that the background is beyond your control to be more creative with your approach and shoot from low upwards. in this case you could have still got the flag the airplane but no tank. A metallic roof isn't as bad as background and it can be replaced ba a blue sky. I have never seen a tank being painted blue, have you?

Hi,

That black stick on top of the glass is a killer. I like the concept to make everything else black and white and keep the lemon yellow. But I think the photo could have had more impact if it was shot vertically and contained all of the glass, including its shape (it could still contain -just some of- the bar background). Please crop from the left a hair thin white line on the left bottom, it spoils your image. But not as much as what lies on the opposite side. Do I see a bar-tender on the right? I see a vague shape resembling the Elephant Man in a new cross gender version. Have I had too many last night?

Family competition? I fear to get involved. I hate to be the reason for a divorce.

It looks impressionistic, it took me some time to realise that the car in front was a Mercedes Vito M8, a black hackney (taxi), my first guess was a Beetle but I don't know how that became my guess...

I like the red highlights, on the traffic light on right, the braking lights of the vehicle in front, and the pink (can't know everything) lights on the left, there seems to be a balance there. Did I omit to mention the glass right in front of me? I like that also. As I like the pathway created pointing to the light far front ahead. Somewhere neat there on the left side between the two pink lights I want to believe that I distinguish a black dressed figure holding an umbrella, so suitable.

But you can't convince me with all this light in the road and far ahead that thi is a night scene, 1/10th or 2/10ths max from the left side need cropping, as the picture there is too dark, the picture unvbalanced and that specific part looks like smudge. I'd say the same even if this picture was his, instead.