Rachel at the Beach

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi all,

I took this photo of my wife down at the beach earlier today. I would love some feedback on composition, skin tone and exposure. White balance okay? All other comments/critiques are also most welcome.

Thanks in advance for your comments,

Jonathan



EXIF:

Camera Canon EOS 50D
Exposure 0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 70 mm
ISO Speed 400
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire

[rachb]

White balance looks good, nice tones in the shot! Love the depth of field, she's very sharp and crisp. My only suggestion is to watch the horizon line- the line that separates the sand/water is crooked, and although my eye is drawn to your wife immediately, it keeps ending up on that crooked line and distracting me from the photo. I think it would be better if it were an obviously tilted horizon... that way it wouldn't look like an oversight. All in all, nice capture!

[Jonathan Evans]

Thanks for the feedback rachb!

I shall go back to the RAW file and straighten it in ACR. An easy fix.

Thanks again for taking the time to comment!

Jonathan

[ccting]

Have you notice the nosrists ?

1) Ask her to look up a bit
2) You climb up a tree or use a small ladder to shot @ higher level (You look down, she looks up just like rachb but not to that extent
3) I think you should crop the image..above "Kappa"... or the "horizons"
4) I am sure whether the natural rembrant /split lighting suits her. I think flattening lighting more suits her to reduce the texture on her face, especially the darker side
5) cover her hair with blue towels until the neck and until her white clothes.
6) I don't know whether the direction of natural lighting has caused texture on her face..

Solve the issue that rachb has addressed + more beautiful eyes. However, it looks no issue for me with the horizons if you include a tiny bit of Sea-Sky.

[Jonathan Evans]

Originally Posted by ccting

5) cover her hair with blue towels until the neck and until her white clothes.

Interesting idea...can you explain why I would want to do this?

[Mark Engelhart]

I think this is a very good shot. The only suggestion that I might make is if you would have rotated her face a little more away from the sun we would have seen more of her beautiful eyes to go with her beautiful smile. (She was squinting) It's amazing how a degree or two will allow the eyes to open up. I love the compostion with the subtle shift from sand to sea and the image is nice and sharp. Keep up the good shooting!

[BryanC]

Originally Posted by rachb

White balance looks good, nice tones in the shot! Love the depth of field, she's very sharp and crisp. My only suggestion is to watch the horizon line- the line that separates the sand/water is crooked, and although my eye is drawn to your wife immediately, it keeps ending up on that crooked line and distracting me from the photo. I think it would be better if it were an obviously tilted horizon... that way it wouldn't look like an oversight. All in all, nice capture!

I don't know, is that the horizon or is it the line between water and sand, (shoreline) ? To me, it looks like shoreline, and shot at an angle from it. For that reason, it doesn't really stand out as a bad thing for me. I think if the photo was rotated to make that a straight line, then the subject would be at an awkward angle. And, I agree...overall, a very nice photo!

(I'm stumped about the blue towels, too... )

[Mark Engelhart]

I'm not suggesting a towel...but if for some God forsaken reason you should decide to try this use a RED towel. Bahahahaha!

[ccting]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Evans

Interesting idea...can you explain why I would want to do this?

First, assume you crop the image above the horizon. Second, I assume what i see is what you see on the screen.

Reasoning:
a) Black - light blue creates higher contrast.
b) White is brighter than dark skin tone, which competes for attention.

My first suggestion is to reduce the contrast between hair , clothes with background, thus using blue is one of the solution. But...

It creates another conflictual problem - color harmony. Cool and warm colors are enemies. Cool looks far while warm pops out. So, I think you need to find the nearest color to blue besides blue that is quite warm. In this case, i think violet may be the color. So, choosing a darker tone of violet that covers the hair, neck and white clothes will reduce the contrast of hair, clothes - background. This lead to the focus to face.

Why look up? I find no catch light in eyes.. By looking up, you see catchlight in eyes.

Nostrists.. distracting..

Well, don't take my comment too seriously as I am a noob. My explanation is arguable because there are so many factors that influence the selection of tone and colors. Plus, there are so many fields (e.g. psychology, painters, photographers... ) who will use different principles in their field to describe and explain why this color why this tone..

I like seeing than taking photos myself.. start photography by training my eyes to see

Some people say, portrait is focus on face first, longest time than other parts. Therefore, based on the objective, i find your image can't meet the objective. Look at the head, and two arms(hands), they are forming inverse triangle which leads eyes towards the bottom part. That's to say, it distract eyes from the face!. That's why you have to crop the image above the horizons to avoid that. The clothing is just no right for the portrait that I defined earlier, unless, that is for different definition of portrait. (Just compare an arrow with inverse triangle, and you will know where it points...). The worst, there are 2 triangles that points to wrong place. I guess you now can see the triangles otherwise i need to explain using psychology principles.

Color, face, arms, legs are the same, and these give big problems. Image that if all the space is black in color and only 1 tiny space with yellow bright color, eyes will tend to focus it automatically for long. Similar to this image, the hands and legs are actually compete for attention with face..

Look at the shirt with yellow wording, the yellow sparkling with little percentage, really outperforms the skin color. It is bright yellow vs DARK tone SKIN. Bright attracts attention.

[Mark Engelhart]

Originally Posted by ccting

First, assume you crop the image above the horizon. Second, I assume what i see is what you see on the screen.

Reasoning:
a) Black - light blue creates higher contrast.
b) White is brighter than dark skin tone, which competes for attention.

My first suggestion is to reduce the contrast between hair , clothes with background, thus using blue is one of the solution. But...

It creates another conflictual problem - color harmony. Cool and warm colors are enemies. Cool looks far while warm pops out. So, I think you need to find the nearest color to blue besides blue that is quite warm. In this case, i think violet may be the color. So, choosing a darker tone of violet that covers the hair, neck and white clothes will reduce the contrast of hair, clothes - background. This lead to the focus to face.


Why look up? I find no catch light in eyes.. By looking up, you see catchlight in eyes.

Nostrists.. distracting..

Well, don't take my comment too seriously as I am a noob. My explanation is arguable because there are so many factors that influence the selection of tone and colors. Plus, there are so many fields (e.g. psychology, painters, photographers... ) who will use different principles in their field to describe and explain why this color why this tone..

I like seeing than taking photos myself.. start photography by training my eyes to see

Have you considered that she would look like a freak if she wore a towel on her head for the photo.... Come on this isn't a mathematical equation it is a eye to brain to heart thing.