first portrait...

[nitrowigie]

Hey guys i am fairly new to photography so i would love some constructive criticism from all you awesome photographers out there point me in the right direction.
cheers a bunch guys and gals.

[Bruce A]

Imo, her left eye and arm should have been in focus too. Her blurry arm to me is distracting and seems unnecessary to the photo as is. Otherwise I quite like and think you did well for your first portrait.

The Critique thread rules say to include the exif data so those in the know can see it and offer possible suggestions to what they think you could change to benefit the photo.

[BigFuzzy]

Yeah, some Exif info as per the rules would be helpful.

I have to disagree with Bruce in that I like a shallow DoF though the arm is a bit distracting, but not because it's blurry. Mostly because it feels posey to me.

I typically don't think it's not a good idea to cut off the chin.. makes it all feel a bit...chopped.

It feels like you did some skin smoothing which I don't like too much. Seems a bit obvious as I see the digital artifacts from it. (ie edging around nose and eyes when viewed at largest size).

I like that you placed her to the left of the frame and left all that space to the right .. has a bit of that cinema feel... just include her chin next time (don't care if head is cropped whereas some will not like it).

All in all, I like the thought you're putting into it and just needs a bit of tweaking and it can really pop.
Watch your cropping, avoid cheesy poses, and careful with skin smooting (personal pet peeve).
Nice b&w conversion by the way.

[nitrowigie]

thanks bruce for the constructive criticism, means a lot. about the exif data is there a way to automatically put it up with the pic??
anyhow it was shot with panasonic gf1, 20mm lens, f2.8, ISO 100 at 1/30s
and yeah i thought the arm might have been a bit distracting haha, i also cut the chin off of her which is a big no no... but hey you learn from these things

[nitrowigie]

Thanks big fuzzy,
yeah the pose did come off a bit cheese hey haha, and yeah i completely understand what u mean about the chin being chopped off.
the details of the shot are written in the other post above...
thanks a heap for your input, i'll be putting some more up soon so it'd be great to here from you again! be good to see some of your work too.

[BigFuzzy]

Click on any of the links in my sig to see much of my work. Especially my website portfolios and my flickr site.
Looking forward to more posts.