portrait

[Nieton21]

I took this down on the Portland riverfront, it was about 3 in the afternoon and a cool day. I'm curious on any suggestions, I am new to photography and am trying to learn as much as i can!

[Seltzer]

First off, what camera and equipment are you using?
Things that I notice right off: too much blank space above her head, may crop that down and crop a tad behind her leaving just a small amount of blank space and maybe a bit in front if needed to maintain aspect ratio and move her a bit more off center.
If you have a camera that you can change the focal point you may try focusing on the eyes a bit more (something I'm still getting used to).
One thing is that the top half seems very blown out, at least appears to have a brighter sheen to it, like the white balancer didn't know quite what to do or there was just a bit too much glare from the background. I'll leave answering that bit up to some people with a bit more technical knowledge but I believe a Neutral Density (ND) or Polarizing filter may help this issue.

[Nicole]

I think that you're off to a good start with the shot, but I'll agree with a lot of what Seltzer said, and try to give some more technical tips for the future.

I had a look for your photo on Flickr (it's really helpful if you link to the photo page ) so that I could see what sort of camera / settings you were using.

I notice that you're using a Digital Rebel XT and your settings were 1/80 sec at f/6.3. My biggest suggestion would be that for a sunny day you need a faster shutter speed. Since you say that you're new at photography, I'd suggest doing some reading about aperture and shutter speed to see what effect they have on your pictures. Low number apertures let in more light, and longer shutter speeds let in more light as well, so combining the two of them, it was probably why the background is so light. You could try using Aperture Priority mode (Av) on your camera and seeing if that makes a difference. A lot of it comes down to playing around with the settings until you're happy. I don't know that a polarizing filter would be of much help here, and I've never used a Neutral Density filter, so I can't offer up any real info on that either

All I can say is that you're off to a good start with the portrait, I think portraits are really hard to take, and you've managed to get a good pose. One really quick suggestion would be to crop the picture just a little so there's less white space behind her and more of a close up.

Looking forward to seeing more from you in the future And sorry for the really long post

[Sita 900]

She's dressed so warm... it must be cold there! I love benches in pictures... they add a nice background to the image (and creates good lines). Her scarf adds a nice splash of color to the picture. And though I wish you were more eyelevel to the subject when you took the picture, I like how centered she is in the frame. Follow what Seltzer and Nicole say, they give good advise!
Overall, very very good for a beginner photographer! :-)

[hsroxas]

For someone who is new to the craft, you have the touch.
I like the angle of the shot. This angle, however, made the bench at her back appear distracting as it intersects her head. Unless it was your intention to show the environs where you took the shot, I normally would use larger aperture to blur the background. This normally provides focus to your subject and makes the subject pop out. The framing could be improve by cropping as previously mentioned, though best to do it when shot is taken. I also am particular with focus on the eyes. The variation in exposure between the upper and lower parts of the image does not bother me so much as it draws my eyes more to the face. Some in fact even use this as style for composition intentionally.

[jiminyClickit]

Nieton21,

Another aspect of a portrait is to keep attention on the face (D'uh, you say) and that could be helped by rearranging the scarf so that cranberry color is more around the neck, closer to the face, not drawing our eyes down. Experiment on.

[Nieton21]

first thanks for all the suggestions,

I had the white balance set to cloudy day (it was a overcast afternoon), i think that it was realy light on the top portion because of the surface in the background. It was a fairly glossy cement finish. I was just thinking about a polarizing or neutral density filter. Sorry about the info. on the shot...this is my first thread and wasn't sure exactly what to include.

Thanks again for all the comments

[Seltzer]

Originally Posted by Nieton21

Sorry about the info. on the shot...this is my first thread and wasn't sure exactly what to include.

I don't think it's possible to give us too much information about the picture.