Candid Roommate

[ryankarr]

Hello!

So, I shot this picture of my room mate completely candidly, and I think It turned out well. The lighting was terrible, so I went black and white to cast alot of the ISO noise kinda like film grain (I don't mind the grainy look, feel free to comment about it). I don't own a flash/lighting, so I used the pop-up on my d5000 and softened it a little bit with a tissue (ghetto, but effective). Shot raw, and cropped out the distractions.



Exif Data:

Nikon d5000
18-55 @55
Iso 1600
Flash fired through tissue to diffuse
F 5.6
SS 1/60th


In lightroom 3, I used the levels to adjust the exposure, pumped the contrast/blacks a little, converted to BW, added some clarity, sharpened with a lot of masking, and added some post-crop vinegetting.

So, composition wise, comment away. Tell me how I could have done it better, since posing/capturing people is something I'm bad at.

Setting wise, I didn't have much flexibility. But if you have suggestions, send them out! (My life for a speedlight I could afford...)

Thanks!

Ryan

[sabrina860]

Awesome pp work! One thing I would change is crop out some of that white space at the top... Not all of it just half or a tiny more. Also his hands are cut off and I wish I knew what he was... holding(?) or laughing at but like u said it was a candid shot and it's a good one. Also one thing that's annoying the hell out of me is your copyright location. It's extremely distracting and my eyes keep going back to that. Its covering a key part of the subject... you should put it in a dead space. There's too much going on there to put your copyright. The lower right corner is a good place.
Anyway besides the crop and the copyright this is a great candid shot and I LOVE the pp work.

[ednorm]

I too like the picture. I would also suggest cropping out a thrird of the whitespace from the wall at the top, it would enlarge the pic and focus the eye more on the subject. Is he playing cards, he sure has a picture worthy smile. Good job.

ed

[kristenh]

given the lighting conditions, i think you did a great job, esp wtih a darker skinned subject who, to me anyway, can be tougher to light properly. my comment re composition is next time take him sitting on the bed- the bed in the background is bothersome esp since some of the colors or tones i guess are so similar to his that he gets lost in the background. but when he's sitting on the bed, he'll have the blank white background (looks like) and the photo will be all about him- not about him and his bed

[ScottKemp2]

I like the dark on dark, still being able to see the outline of his head and face. I find the face to be the central area of interest. I would crop around it looking for a good balance that leaves the top and right side behind.