'Portrait Photography' Competition - Win A Samyang 85mm F/1.4 FE II Lens!
Comments
Much better, Akram.
It is awkward for me to look at for too long because I have suffered from depression, and I can therefore say with conviction that it is successful in conveying that emotion.
I agree with Willie about the added space, otherwise it's just a face (I'm a poet!), and the viewer should feel a sense of mystery, which that extra space can provide.
The half-shut eyes are good because you don't want to communicate with the world when in this state of mind, and introspection is suggested here. The eyes set the mood, and having them looking down creates a sombre atmosphere.
There are some shiny bits either side of the face. Are they earrings? I think the image might look better without them.
This is a challenging photographic project, using just the face. I can imagine all sorts of bodily stances what would suggest depression, like a head in hands, a seated body bent over a table perhaps with a dear-John letter in hand, and the like, but only having the face gives you very little to work with.
Pamela.
It is awkward for me to look at for too long because I have suffered from depression, and I can therefore say with conviction that it is successful in conveying that emotion.
I agree with Willie about the added space, otherwise it's just a face (I'm a poet!), and the viewer should feel a sense of mystery, which that extra space can provide.
The half-shut eyes are good because you don't want to communicate with the world when in this state of mind, and introspection is suggested here. The eyes set the mood, and having them looking down creates a sombre atmosphere.
There are some shiny bits either side of the face. Are they earrings? I think the image might look better without them.
This is a challenging photographic project, using just the face. I can imagine all sorts of bodily stances what would suggest depression, like a head in hands, a seated body bent over a table perhaps with a dear-John letter in hand, and the like, but only having the face gives you very little to work with.
Pamela.
Yes, much better.
Strong praise from Pamela, so I guess you've achieved your aim.
So, my mod adds the space suggested. I also removed thos bright spots which increasingly annoyed me. It's all about the face and the emotion there, so we don't want any distractions.
I also made a small Levels adjustment or a fuller tonal range, and then it looked a little lighter so I added a Curves adjustment to darken it down to (around) the level of your original but retain the larger tonal range (though looking at the two versions here there's really not a lot in it!).
Strong praise from Pamela, so I guess you've achieved your aim.
So, my mod adds the space suggested. I also removed thos bright spots which increasingly annoyed me. It's all about the face and the emotion there, so we don't want any distractions.
I also made a small Levels adjustment or a fuller tonal range, and then it looked a little lighter so I added a Curves adjustment to darken it down to (around) the level of your original but retain the larger tonal range (though looking at the two versions here there's really not a lot in it!).
Much, much better.
Tone down the highlight on the nose, get rid of those white dots - they probably aren't nearly so noticeable in the original file, resizing for uploading really exaggerates such imperfections. After that, it's down to all the possible variations in framing and placement. I'm seeing the self at the bottom of the well of loneliness.
Moira
Tone down the highlight on the nose, get rid of those white dots - they probably aren't nearly so noticeable in the original file, resizing for uploading really exaggerates such imperfections. After that, it's down to all the possible variations in framing and placement. I'm seeing the self at the bottom of the well of loneliness.
Moira
Hi All,
Thank you very much for your comments, I really appreciated your efforts and when I see the difference between first versions and the last versions of my shoots (coffee time, depression) I realize how beneficial your remarks and advice are.
Pamela you have guessed the different aspects that I tried to control, if you added the direction of the light to shade the eyes I would have said that you were present with us during the shooting session
The earrings are very bright I didn't know how to remove them in post processing but when seeing keith's mod I understood that I can hide them with spot removal tool.
The highlight in the noise is the mistake I repeated twice
I should take care of this aspect in my future photo.
I added a mod where I removed the crop I did, I removed the earrings and decreased the highlight on the nose .
Thank you all for your effort to correct me.
Kinds regards
Akram
Thank you very much for your comments, I really appreciated your efforts and when I see the difference between first versions and the last versions of my shoots (coffee time, depression) I realize how beneficial your remarks and advice are.
Pamela you have guessed the different aspects that I tried to control, if you added the direction of the light to shade the eyes I would have said that you were present with us during the shooting session
The earrings are very bright I didn't know how to remove them in post processing but when seeing keith's mod I understood that I can hide them with spot removal tool.
The highlight in the noise is the mistake I repeated twice
I should take care of this aspect in my future photo.I added a mod where I removed the crop I did, I removed the earrings and decreased the highlight on the nose .
Thank you all for your effort to correct me.
Kinds regards
Akram
Two thoughts - m yapproach to spot removal is often to use the Clone tool - for the work on the nose, I reduced the opacity, so that it darkened, but didn't turn the highlight black. For the earring and the white spots, I set opacity at 100%. There are often different ways to achieve the same thing.
Avoiding an excessively bright highlight in the first place depends on how you were lighting the picture - - either a continuous light source or studio flash units with modelling lights will give you a pretty good idea of what's going to show in the picture. If you use speedlights, you won't have theis preview, and need to examine shots carefully at the start of each sequence of pictures. The settings you used (low ISO, moderate aperture, lowish shutter speed) suggest that flash was involved in this shot, but I could be wrong...
Avoiding an excessively bright highlight in the first place depends on how you were lighting the picture - - either a continuous light source or studio flash units with modelling lights will give you a pretty good idea of what's going to show in the picture. If you use speedlights, you won't have theis preview, and need to examine shots carefully at the start of each sequence of pictures. The settings you used (low ISO, moderate aperture, lowish shutter speed) suggest that flash was involved in this shot, but I could be wrong...
