my brother

[steffievdakker]

I took this picture of my brother standing in front of a war bunker yesterday. He hates it when I take pictures of him so I used my 50-200 mm lens. He didn't even know I was taking pictures of him, so that was great. I'm trying to get better at photographing people so please tell me what you think.

He's 18 and really wants to be a cool guy, so that's what I wanted to make him look like in this picture.

I cropped the picture a bit to get focused on his face and then I converted in to black and white and added grain. I've never done that before. Is it too much grain? Is the contrast ok?

Thanks!

[xxpinballxx]

I think as for composition its fine. Does have the cool guy effect but night be a bit too much grain. Was it a noisy shot to begin with.....
Hard to tell if its out of focus with the conversion and noise added. I think a very very slight bit of vignetting would help here to or just burn the left edge a bit so viewer doesnt look off the page....
do you have the original to show us the change?

[steffievdakker]

This is the original image. I like it this way, but converted it to black and white and then added noise. I had never added noise before so I guess I was a bit enthusiastic! This original is not noisy at all.

Based on what I read on portraiture here I thought I'd crop the image quite a bit because it's about him and not about the background. But I like it this way too. Please tell me what you think!

[jiminyClickit]

steffievdakker,

Crop still suggests where it is without distracting, also leads viewer to subject brother, and his direction of sight keeps us there. Grain is a focus killer, so you decide if it's the look you want. A portrait crop also would look good, starting inside hair, back of neck, down to just above dark section (floor).

[steffievdakker]

Something like this? I think this one would have been interesting if he had been looking at me. I got one though that I'll try to crop like this too.

[xxpinballxx]

I think if you want to add the noise maybe apply a mask to your brother then add the noise to just the background and maybe even a very slight blur. I think the large color version is fantastic and don't mind the extra space off the the left......

[steffievdakker]

Thanks! I'll have to figure out how to apply a mask first, but I'll definately try.. This image is really nice to play around with I think!

[jiminyClickit]

steffievdakker,

The strength of your original shows, leaves open many options. I was thinking James Dean (US actor, rebel, "cool guy') and the portrait crop sort of goes that way.