Pregnant Silhouette - General Critique

[suprspi]

I was playing around tonight and got my wife to stand in front of the sunset so I could get a silhouette. I took a few (my flickr stream has the others) but this is the one I think is best.

As far as critique, I guess I'm looking for a couple of things. I can't exactly re-shoot it, but I want to know what people think of the composition. Also, is the image under-exposed enough? (I had shot -2.0 exposure I believe). There is a little bit of highlight left in her hair (red) but otherwise most of the elements show up flat to me.

Any advise, but particularly to do with composition and exposure would be good. I shot it in auto mode, and metered the sky past her, and then focused on her and shot.

Permission granted to edit and re-upload to DPS. I'm also interested in what post-processing I might do to it - I'm very, very new to post processing, and just learning how to use lightroom.


Camera: Sony DSC-H50
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/2000)
Aperture: f/7.1
Focal Length: 5.2 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: -1 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire

[nicoledana]

I agree with the red in her hair. I haven't really learned this whole style of shooting yet, but from what I read, to get a true silhouette you need to meter in the midtones. I dont know what that would have been for this photo. You can do some photoshop editing to the areas you want darker (aka the red in the hair) and I think you would be pleased with it. As far as it being 'flat' most silhouettes I have seen generally look flat. I really like the angle you chose. Its outside of the norm which is always interesting. The two different colors in the sky is really cool too... Overall, i think its a great photo.

[freybear3]

good photos.

i think the flower on the right side of the photo, in the pregnant photo, needs to be cropped out. i think it would look much better.

[suprspi]

Thanks for the tips.

I agree that silo's should look flat. I'm pretty happy with the result that way. I don't mind the hair too much, I don't find it distracting, but I'd be happy to hear commentary to the contrary if someone sees it differently.

I think I will crop the flower in the bottom left out and see how that looks. I'll repost it once I get home from work and fiddle with it.

If I used lightroom to lower the exposure value a bit (this is jpg, I can't shoot RAW in my camera) is it likely to take the red highlight out of the hair, or is there a better way to do that.

How would any of you present this? With a black border/matte or on white or.....? Suggestions are welcome. I'm thinking of framing it for hanging somewhere in our house.

In the thorn one I'm going to crop the left hand side and bottom a bit as well to crop out the flat top of the shed, I'm finding it distracting, as everything else in the photo has a "natural" shape to it. I'm wondering if I should try to clone out the wierd leaf sticking out on the thorn one too, but I like the spiderweb, again, any commentary on this is welcome.

My cloning skills probably leave a bit to be desired, so maybe it's best to leave it as captured.

Again, thanks for the comments/critiques, and for not being *too* hard on me. I'm pretty new to this whole photography thing.

[suprspi]

I've edited the pregnant silhouette with the crop suggested. I also did noise reduction on it in lightroom. This is the result, which I feel looks better, thanks for the suggestions.

I'm still undecided about Samantha's hair - I can't decide if the wisp of red adds to the photo or distracts....opinions?

I lined the photo up with the left third running down her centerline.....I wanted to get one of the left intersections somewhere interesting on her but that would require a fairly dramatic crop, which left it feeling too tight to me. If anyone has a suggestion or would like to edit to show my what I'm missing, permission is of course granted to edit and repost on DPS.

Thanks for your tips with my first critique guys and gals.

edit: I left the branches from the flower as they seem to follow the treeline in an upward swoop towards Sam's belly, drawing the eye. They could also be viewed as distracting - would cloning them out or cropping closer be better if so?

[suprspi]

I don't know if bumping is allowed, but I know that the critique and share your shots sections tend to bury posts fairly quickly.

Anyone care to look at the updated photo and tell me what they think? I left my comments and questions above.

The biggest I guess are:

1) does the wisp of red in her hair distract? Should it go? Any suggestions on how, if so?

2) Does the branches pointing up to her belly distract? Should they go?


Any other suggestions and critiques are welcome.

Thanks.

Jeff