Fall Coat

[Mehgan]

Critiques are greatly appreciated. I really like this photo but I'm not sure about the lighting. The face needs clearing up a bit too.

SONY DSLR-A290
f/6.3
1/100 sec
ISO 100
45 mm
No flash

[Murtasma]

Nice location and pose. I would crop or clone those chains out of the image. The image I think needs a tad more contrast. What metering mode were you using? I think center weighted average could have given you a better exposure. I think the image is slightly over exposed (due to the background throwing the meter off) resulting in a slight lose of contrast especially in the hightlight areas things look a little washed out. (It could also be the lens you used)

What time of day was it? What was the weather like? The shadow on the tree makes it look like this was short torwards the end of the day near sunset. The light difference between each side of the face makes it impossible to get an even distribution of light across the face unless you use a reflector or some type of diffusion material between the sun and the person you are photographing. You may even have to resort to using some fill flash to balance the subject with the background when working under the shade (I assume there was no shade here really due to the position of the sun and the environment.)

I think you have a really nice image and with some post processing you should be able to resource most if not all of those highlights if you shot in raw. Even in JPG form I think a curve adjustment alone will make an improvement in your image.

Thanks for sharing!

[corvus2606]

I like the image overall, but find both the chain and white fence in the background distracting, my eye is always pulled to the lower left corner and away from the subjects face. composition is ok, but would have had her shoulders facing into the image instead of directed to the right edge, and a little more fill light on the right side of the face wouldn't go astray. the highlights on her face are a little blown out, which indicates over exposure, but not too much.

[SwissJon]

Go Square.

If you crop this photo square so that the chain is cut out, then you also lose the bulk of the fence without losing that lovely autumn coloured tree and there's still a small amount of white to add interest. As an added bonus, the subjects face is still on the right hand vertical third.

Great photo.