Photos of friends

[tigerfight]

Took this for my photos of friends series. I wanted to see your opinion on if I should lighten it up a little more and if you think I should have moved the flash a little more to the center. iso 100 f/6.3 1/200 flash at 1/4 power (i think) through the umbrella about 6 feet away from upper right.

[SusanH1970]

It does look a little underexposed, but I like the positioning - maybe lower the light a little? The catchlights are in a nice position, but are at 1 o'clock and I prefer them a bit lower, like 2o'clock, and the light would be more even on the lower part of her face. You have some lovely soft shadowing going on that gives it depth. Try moving the umbrella a bit closer and perhaps upping the power a touch. Great focus!

Something in the background is distracting, and there's a little too much negative space IMHO.

[LinkBeam]

I really like the shot. It looks very.... natural. I would probably either crop out the right (black) part of the image or make the whole background pure black. Also, for a pure black extended to the right background I would probably position my main light camera left, but thats just IMO. I think you did a great job considering you were using just one light. Adding a kicker, hair and a fill migth improve the shot, but it will also be a completely different image alltogether and migth not have the same natural relaxed feeling...

[Laurenbiz]

You should definitely darken the background so that it is all black. That would look GREAT :-)

[Cathrine]

I'm a newbie myself and I am not critiquing the picture... I'm learning how the others are critiquing it. How were you able to tell that it was underexposed? What should I be looking at? THanks.