Portrait of a friend!

[omarh]

New to the site.
I've been working on improving my photography for a few years now.
I use a Rebel T1i, and a Tamron 17-50 2.8 lens with a 440ex2 flash.
I have experimented with off camera flash and on camera (bouncing against walls etc).
I'm not sure how to further improve my shots. Or if I don't even know what to improve next...maybe composition?

Shot at 1/160, f4, ISO 200, 50mm

[carlyfan]

Nice photo. The lighting looks great, nice catch lights, and good composition. But the background is really distracting. Unless it's supposed to be a portrait of a cook in her kitchen. But then I think you should show more cooking related stuff and not so much cupboard. I love the colors too.

Welcome to DPS! I've learned so much here already!
Lisa

[terri33inne]

Very nice capture... I like that she's off center. I do agree that the background (even though blurry) is distracting. Also, her skin tone looks a little yellowish to me (maybe it's my monitor?).

[omarh]

Thanks all.
Yeah, I didn't control the background much.
I shot this at a dinner party we were having, so the kitchen was kind of a mess after cooking all the food for the party :0
She just happened to be sitting there and I thought, cool picture opportunity!!! hold that pose!!

I'm trying to organize my friends for a real photo shoot where I can go rent a background and another lightstand and do some real portraits with a better background etc.

[MrJones]

since I'm guessing this was a candid photo, I'll leave the background out.
what bothers me is that it feels too warm. the kitchen doors (back to background?) are supposed to be near white and they have that brownish look.
try playing with the colors to get that right tone.

[BigFuzzy]

"I'm not sure how to further improve my shots. Or if I don't even know what to improve next...maybe composition? "

With only seeing one photo it's a bit difficult to say how you can improve your photos in general, but I'll comment based on this one image.

As others have said, unless this was made to show the subjects context, thinking of the background is one of the very first things you should do before even lifting up the camera to your eyes. It's basic, easy, yet crucially important (in my humble opinion).

Color cast - though you say you used flash, it's clearly taken on a yellow tinge that's typically a result of your normal household lights. Either change your WB in-camera or shoot in RAW and correct for it later as it does look very yellow.

She looks nice and relaxed, so that's good (and not always easy to do).

And my #1 pet peeve - eye sharpness. From looking at this version on the image, the eyes simply aren't sharp enough for a portrait. Maybe if I saw a larger version I'd see i'm wrong, but I don't think so, right? To me, a portrait is about a person, and the first thing people look at (typically) is the eyes, which is why they are crucial to a portrait. The reason for your lack of sharpness is very likely camera holding technique since I see that you had 1/160th of a second shutter speed which should have been enough to get a sharp capture. Make sure you have your elbows as close to your sides as possible and that you push the shutter as gently as possible. Plus, make sure you know how to focus-lock and recompose or use manual focus, because it seems you have have had the sharpest focus on her teeth/mouth which implies you may have been using autofocus with either only the center selected, or leaving it up to the camera to choose the focal point.. big no-no's in portraiture.

Composition - to me, it's pretty much what you described it as.. a snapshot at a social event. The composition does nothing for me. Yes, she's not smack dab in the middle which is good, but not far from it (rule of 3rds) I can tell, from the angle of the shot, that you pretty much were in standing position, or taller than her significantly, and simply shot it from a standard "I'm standing here with camera at eye level" position without putting much thought into composition.
Composition and background are two things to think about before you ever raise camera to your eye (again, in my humble opinion )

My overall thought is to simply start really thinking about your images. Don't just react to something that's there. Think "how can I make it different" or "how can I make this different instead of shooting it like every other person would do it?" ... take the first few thoughts you have and throw them out of your head.. then start shooting because chances are, the first few thoughts you have everyone on this forum has taken many of those same exact shots.. not to mention everyone out there in the world.

I hope this helps.. I see in retrospect it may be a bit harsh, but it's with constructive spirit that I write.
Cheers!
Al

[omarh]

Thanks guys. That was very helpful.
It did not occur to me to focus on her eyes, I actually just focus on her face most of the time...hmmmm in hindsight it seems so obvious now.
As for how I focus, I always use spot focus and then recompose. I don't trust the camera to pick a focus spot for me.
You're right though, her eyes are not as sharp as I'd like them to be.
This has given me some ideas for the next opportunity to shoot some pictures.

[BigFuzzy]

Originally Posted by omarh

Thanks guys. That was very helpful.
It did not occur to me to focus on her eyes, I actually just focus on her face most of the time...hmmmm in hindsight it seems so obvious now.
As for how I focus, I always use spot focus and then recompose. I don't trust the camera to pick a focus spot for me.
You're right though, her eyes are not as sharp as I'd like them to be.
This has given me some ideas for the next opportunity to shoot some pictures.

Glad to help.. post more results so we can see how it's coming..

And yes.. eyes, eyes, eyes!