Self Portrait

[soniae]

Hi
Just wanting some feedback on these two photo's. They are self portraits and i have taken them to demonstrate for an assignment the use of natural light and artificial light. Any tips on how they could be improved?

[midnightpro]

first picture is boring to me but the second one has nice composition. The lighting on the first one does nothing for me.

[BigFuzzy]

First off, you might want to read the forum rules on posting.. you'll probably get one of your images removed by a Mod. Plus Exif info is really helpful for your sort of question. And a description of the lighting used (besides artificial/natty which is obvious) would also help. Thanks

Haviung said that, well, I guess it kind of depends on the point(s) you're trying to make in the 'assignment'. Neither one is a great representation of the best of the differing lighting techniques to be perfectly honest (as I see it).

The artificial lighting has very bad WB and is very straight-on which is about the worst you can do with flash.
The natural light, though better, is also not exciting and is probably hurt more because of the composition..

...speaking of. Both images are compositionally bleh to me. Both are pretty much dead-center compositions and too tightly cropped. I think it's never a good idea to crop chins.. ever. Heads I don't mind, chins.. never. The NatLight one looks really odd because of how tight the crop is and the flash on crops out the hands/arms awkwardly.
Again, if you tell us what you're trying to illustrate, what I've said above may not matter as they may be perfect descriptors of your point, but as portraits in and of themselves, I find the cropping/composition to be the element most in need of work.