Today's Shoot.

gavin

Did some pictures on the request of a friend.

All were taken with a Nikkor 50mm 1.8 or a Nikkor 80-200 2.8

Sb600 was used in all as a remote flash.

crockett

Overall, good stuff!

1. People are gonna hate that fence. Fine by me. I think the flash should have been higher or rotated more towards the photographer. My guess, is it was bit too low. I think the shadows from the jacket collar and the left side of the nose would have been better with a flash from a higher angle. The face seems a bit too "flashed" or bright for me. I would have knocked it down a hair. I would have also tried a snoot, to create more fall off or better yet letting the background go darker by changing your shutter speed.

2. My favorite of the bunch. Good comp. Nice lines. The sticks/wires coming out of his head are little distracting.

3. This one disturbs me. The rules are made to be broken. But the "up the nose, no bottoms of feet, etc." all apply here and those danged "rules" people were right this time.

4. Like it a lot. I just wonder if a touch of on camera fill would improve it. I also feel it is cropped too tight on the right. Vignette the upper right and bottom left corner? Gotta love the balance in the jacket, just enough texture not to over power the photo.

5. Like the idea, lighting is good to great, however too much dead space up front for me. I wonder how it would be if he was sitting 2-4 steps lower.

6. Cool stuff. I know it's hard to do but I desire to see his left eye not be cut by the fence but in full view.

Good job!

ladytx

Loving these photos Gavin. Good job. Love the environment.

The following comments are not complaints. Just looking at the photos and seeing things that I would like to try and see the results.

1.




Love this photo. The fence seems to frame the subject. I would like this photo without the fence also. As stated before, if your flash will synch try making a faster shutter speed to darken the wall some and dial down the flash on his face. Maybe step him away from the wall a bit also.



2 & 3



Love the DOF and pose on #2.

Like the angle on #3 even though it is against "rules". At this distance I don't feel like I am looking up his nose. The bottom of the feet don't bother me as this is the angle of the photo but I would have liked to have seen the other foot included. The background is too bright for me on this one though but maybe there is not another option for this one.


4 & 5





Love the B&W and the pose and the hat. Don't know if you took the photo this way or if you cropped it but he does seem a bit cramped on camera right and maybe include a bit more of his legs.


#5. Very kool. I like the included foreground.



6.




This is an awesome picture. It would have been good if you could find an angle to get both of his eyes but you came very close.


Very good job on all these photos.

gavin

Thank you both for your critiques. Really appreciate them! My flash can sync higher. I believe that shot was at 1/320 my camera can sync up to 1/500.

More like this(?)

zoomer

I like 5 and 6.
The ones where the light is coming up from below make to strong a shadow on the face.
I prefer the light to come from above...just my taste.
The light on the face does not look proportionate to the rest of the photo..almost like someone was holding a spotlight just on the face in all but 5 and 6.
Overall nice shots...but I am not a fan of the lighting in most of them.

I bet your friend was very happy with them however, and that is all that really matters.

gavin

Thank you zoomer. I do agree, I need to work on my lighting. It would be nice to have another Pocket wizard so I can have two remote flashes for more equal lighting and a light meter.

zoomer

Use your built in flash commander mode on your nikon with flashes on remote.
As long as the sensor sees the flash from your build in flash they will go off.
You can put them on two different channels so the power of the two flashes can be set up differently...main and fill.

Don't need pocket wizards or wires.

gavin

I could do that, however that doesn't really work for me for a couple reasons.

Using the IR on the camera and flash is very unreliable.

My second flash is a vivatar 285, which wont sync this way.

and last, usually my flashes are places my camera cant see them.

Elaine

I really like these. The processing and colors, comps and backgrounds are all very interesting to me. I'm new to flash usage, but I think the lighting suits the shots. Thanks for sharing something a bit different!

Dave Clee

I also like this series...Not your normal type of portraits and I like that..

Great compositions and lighting..

Cheers

Dave

Betz

Love this series of shots. I love that they have a different feel to them and that's what caught my eye.

My fave has to be the last photo with the fence and capturing his eyes within the openings. First photo is good overall though I'm not a fan of the harsh light on his face.

Nice job.

gavin

Cheers everyone!

evoryware

I like the 1st one a lot, though I think it may be a little better if the light was a tad higher. I like 2 and 3. I think the shoes just match with the rest of the colors in the photo and it works. 4 is my favorite. No real complaints about the others. I agree with another poster that it would be nice if the eyes were really between the fence holes.

mmmatt

I think the last one would be stronger if you blurred the fence using selective focus on the model and wall. Overall I think the set is great and the low lighting seems to work ok... Something you don't see every day unless you watch a lot of Alfred Hitchcock!

Matt