Please Critique this Outdoor Portrait Shot

[swiftmed]

Hey Folks,

I recently took my little sister and her Financé out for a test-photoshoot in preparation for their wedding later next month, got some great shots, but this was one of my favourite.

Im looking for some critique and some feedback on how it looks. Looking at it from purely my (limited) experience, I can't see much I would change, but Im looking for the professionals feedback... I.E., you guys.

If I had to make any changes, I think the first thing would have been to ensure they were both smiling and not squinting,I would have maybe blown out the background a little more, but In doing that, I might have also blown out the pole and the concrete wheel on the left, and I actually quite like those being in there.

Im looking for as much feedback as possible, especially with regards to composition and the posing of the subjects, anything else you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.



Shutter: 1/250th
Focal: 70mm
Aperture: f6.3
ISO: 100

[NicoleScraps]

So you are looking for someone to pick this apart and point out things you did not see?

I think it is basically a nice shot, somethings I would change are:
-straighten it. It feels crooked to me.
-watch the fingers. Hers are cut off. Try not to cut stuff off like that. Either show the whole hand or not at all.
-Probably you could have benefited from using a wider aperture here, lower f number. It would have blurred that background a bit more.
-get a reflector. Their faces and skin tones are sort of dull. Using a reflector (since they are sort of back-sidish lit) would have really brightened up their faces.

Hope that helps

[swiftmed]

Yes Nicole, looking for as much 'ripping it apart' as possible. I have thick skin, and prefer people to be brutally honest with me, so the more constructive criticism I can get, the better.

Thank you very much for your feedback. I have actually purchased a reflector kit since I took this picture, so I'll most definitely make use of it on their wedding day - In your opinion, do you think a bit of on-camera fill flash is better than the use of a reflector? I can't afford a flash gun unfortunately, so I have been experimenting a lot with my on-cmera popup flash, from around 5/8 feet away, would my cameras flash help this image much, or is the reflector a better of the two options?

Great tip about the fingers too - I completely missed that, Ill be sure to keep my eyes on this on the wedding day. What do you think about the placement of his arms? You can only see his fingertips on her right shoulder, would you have him remove that hand, or OK as it is?

I actually quite liked the slight angle, but after your tip, I straightened the photo out a little more in Aperture, I much prefer the straighter edit, what do you think? Better, or...? By straightening it out, its actually removed her hands too.

[JFSanders]

Andy, good to see you again. Well let us begin then. The focus is always on the main subject in a portrait, especially at a wedding. So any competing elements are not good. Supporting elements are good. What you have here is a competition between the post and the people. Now you probably don't see it that way as you see the people all the time and therefore they are subordinate to your perception. NOT GOOD. As we are supposed to be making memories for your sister! Right?

So lets go back and recompose this shot. Now your primary light is coming from 2 oclock high (think of two clock faces, one horizontal and one vertical both sitting on top of your subjects head). This is called 3/4 rear light and is pretty good for dudes as it creates dramatic shadows on his face. So good job there and as he is acting as a gobo for your smashing sister she is getting wrapped light which is good for her! Nice even soft light. Great. But hold on a sec. See his ear? You know the one on the left that is glowing like Rudolph the red nose reindeer's nose? BAD! So we either need a diffuser on the primary side or we need to spend a bit of time in post dodging his ear and in all honesty his whole side and the sky as well.

So we like the wheel and post but we don't want them to overpower our subject which is your sister and her gobo, I mean financier, fiance! sorry.
We have to either move in closer so that they fill the frame and the wheel and post support them with color and structure balance on the left side of the frame. Or we pull them in front of the wheel and post having her lean on the wheel and him somewhere around the post or whatever. You will have to experiment with placement but using the rule of competing compositional components.

Shooting from a low position is good but eye level with her is better. The eyes are the most important part and if he can't open his and smile, well you may have to get him drunk so that he is directable and compliant. Tell him that all of his mates won't fizz on him if he smiles. It isn't like he is getting a life sentence or something like that...

Anyway look at this edit I've done and see if you can tell what it is that I've changed.

Jim

[BigFuzzy]

Nicole and Jim make good points so i won't add/detract from them.

The only thing I'd say is that this portrait really could use some fill flash as their faces, to me, are much too dark . Unless you have an assistant, not sure how you would have gotten a reflector close enough to fill their faces/eyes enough.

This is all a result of shooting in harsh, mid-dayis sun which I would suggest to always avoid if you're not prepared to use flash or have access to open shade. It's also why they're squinting. Using flash would have allowed you to under expose the background and they would pop out of it a bit more seeing as right now I feel they blend into it a little due to the highlights on the male blending into the bright background.

I also think that better lighting on them would have allowed for the viewer to focus on them as the main subject and relegated the wheel/pole as secondary as Jim rightly pointed out.

The bright mid-day sun is the main issue I have with all the images from this series on flickr.. otherwise many would have been considerably better.

Don't be afraid of flash, it's your friend if used properly.

[swiftmed]

Hi Jim,

Awesome post with some great feedback. You actually make some very good points that I hadn't really thought about. You see - I really liked the wheel in there, but as you said, for a wedding - the subjects are and should be the centre of attention.

I did notice that his face appeared in shadow and that his left side and ear stood out more than it perhaps should have. At the time I didn't have a reflector, and I didn't use any flash so Im hoping the day of the wedding that we don't have any direct sunlight, just a nice overcast day to give me some nice even light. Of course, knowing my luck, it'll either be raining or bright sunshine. Nothing in-between.

I also really loved your cropped shot too. I liked the post and wheel, but cutting the post completely and just having a little of the wheel has really pulled the viewers attention away from that, and back onto the subjects. I shall keep this in mind when we go back to the park and try again, and ill also open up the aperture to blow out the background and wheel which should pull the viewers attention even more.

About the smiling, this is something I wish id paid more attention too. Truth be told, this was the first shoot id ever done outside of usual candid's in and around the house, so I was paying more attention to the settings on my camera, and having them in locations with a relatively nice background. I didn't pay enough attention to having the subjects - especially him - smiling. This will be something I pay the most attention too when we head back there.

I still have another 7 weeks worth of practicing I can do, and I'm going to make use of it as best as possible. I've offered to to do free photoshoots for friends and family over the next few weeks in various indoor and outdoor locations, so I hope with each successive shoot, my skill level goes up and I keep on learning.

@BigFizz, thanks also for your feedback. Regarding the harsh sun, on the day there's not going to be a huge amount I can do about that other than to learn to work around it, find better more suitable locations. I went to the park with the couple at the exact same time as we would on their wedding day to take pictures with light thats similar to what we'd get on the day. These were the results. Still have a lot of learning to do, but getting there.

This site is truly a wonderful resource, as are all you guys and gals willing to take time out of your day to help people like me, so sincerely, thank you!

[JFSanders]

Andrew, there is a pretty good online resource for learning about diffusers and gobos. You may have already read most of these but I will link them anyway for others.

Portrait photography

Wedding photography

Outdoor portrait video

These are by no means the standard or even close to complete but they do get you started in the right direction and will lead you to more of what you seek in knowledge.

Jim

[swiftmed]

Thank you Jim. I have just downloaded the pages to my iPad, so i'll have a good read through them tonight.

Thanks again for your help. I have four free shoots lined up for this week, so if it's OK with everybody, ill post the results to this forum and get some feedback on how I'm progressing over the week.

[EOBeav]

Yes, invest in some flash! It's a nice image (I even like the crookedness) but the subjects are too underexposed.

[oneronnalee]

This is coming purely from my fine art background, but I don't like the way the background seems to be dividing them (trees behind the girl and the sky behind the boy). And a little tip, whenever I'm shooting with models I try to think about the relation of their colouring in terms of skintone, clothing, hair colour and the background which I'm likely to be using. Here's an example. Sometimes the colour itself can be a very powerful feature of the photo, especially in outdoors shots, so look out for that and see what you come up with