First senior photoshoot... comments/advice welcome!

My3Sons

Here are a few pics from my first senior photoshoot. My client had some crazy ideas, so I followed through with her ideas, but also tried to do some "normal" poses so I could please the paying parents as well. Her mother is very picky. I haven't heard much feedback from them since I posted the pics a week ago. She said that she, and her friends love the pictures, and her mother is very picky, although she likes the pictures overall. Her mom wants me to change her hair color in some of the pics where the sunset is hitting it... ha ha! Any and all comments are welcome!















www.naturalphotography.smugmug.com

Mike J

Just see red X's :

My3Sons

Mike J wrote:

Just see red X's :

Thanks, but that didn't help much, cause you didn't tell me why. I'm needing constructive criticism/comments!

staypuffinpc

no pics

My3Sons wrote:

Thanks, but that didn't help much, cause you didn't tell me why. I'm needing constructive criticism/comments!

What he means is that we can't see any pics

afev0602

Bahahahaha--very cute, No, he means your photos arent showing....just red x's....your links are bad.

Richard

Check to see that you have external links enabled in the galleries hosting the pics. That's usually the source of problems like this. How To Post on Dgrin

Scott_Quier

External links are not enabled as I was able to grab the URL and view the photo in another browser window.

Ed911

I can see some of them...and I really like the selective color frame shot...you might try doing it as a B&W with everything else surrounding her in color.

Cool...

My3Sons

should be better now

staypuffinpc wrote:

What he means is that we can't see any pics

Ha ha ha... wow, I can see them fine here, so I didn't know that everyone else could not. I had set external links to yes when I put these on here, and then changed them to no, thinking the pictures would still stay here. External links are set to yes now. Can you all see these now?

www.naturalphotography.smugmug.com

Travis

I can see why she likes them - this a great set for the subject and her friends. Moms, on the other hand, typically prefer something less edgy and more traditional. Its a delicate balance and most high senior photographers I know set out to create 2 groups of portraits for a shoot - one for the subject and the second for mom. The former are far more fun to create but mom is the one laying out the dollars.

On to the critique... disclaimer - I'm on my work monitor which is horrible so take color and highlights with a grain of salt.

1. Love the pose and smile. The facial highlights appear a bit hot. I like vignettes but as I have advised in the past and I'm learning to be true is that less is more. Blending the vignette (lower opacity, higher feather) would give a softer look to this image while still guiding the eye to the subject.

2. The tilt of the shot works with the pose. The upper right background appears hot and a little distracting - maybe burn it a little. Lighting on her is great!

3. I like the creative outfit and pose. It is difficult to ascertain the detail in the facial features at this image size but as best I can tell the lightin looks a tad flat. The tilt in this case doesn't work for me as it looks like the wall is about to fall on her.

4. Love it. The highlight on the hair really sets it off.

5. This is a a nice use of selective coloring. I'm not sure about the fingers on the frame - the b/w doesn't seem right but if they are colored, they may stand out way too much. The lighting is great. I would like to see her body turned a little more to her right (camera left) rather than having the shoulders straight on.

6. Same comments about the pose. The image is also very busy. A shallower depth of field may improve this a bit as she seems to get lost in the background.

7. First off, great job on the masking and a clever idea. This is one that I'm sure she loved. Personally I'm not digging the angle because it exaggerates the size of her legs in comparison to the rest of her body (her right foot appears to be as long as her the width of her shoulders).

Scott_Quier

My3Sons wrote:

Ha ha ha... wow, I can see them fine here, so I didn't know that everyone else could not. I had set external links to yes when I put these on here, and then changed them to no, thinking the pictures would still stay here. External links are set to yes now. Can you all see these now?

It's because the images were already in your browser cache.

And, yes they are now displaying.

C&C
First - number your shots - it makes it a lot easier for us to reference the photos!:D

Second, like Travis, I'm on my monitor at work which is very very poor for color - though I have learned to compensate for it a bit.

Third - your water mark is very distracting - especially on #3. It took me three good hard looks to realize the red leaves weren't painted on the wall but were a part of the watermark.

Fourth - your use of the sun on her hair! Well done. Did you use flash or reflector to balance the light a bit? I suspect you used flash as her face seems to be a bit cooler than it should. The cure for that? A CTO gel on your flash to help the flight from the flash match that from the sun.

Specifics:

1. Very nice traditional pose. I think getting camera a bit lower would have been better. Color - a little cold for my taste.
2. This is nice! A bit more PP would help. I think I would burn the upper right corner a bit and apply a fairly aggressive dark vignette as well.
3. Nice. But, I think I would have like to seen a landscape orientation - I'm thinking a bit more context is called for?
4. Clone out the buildings in the upper edge of the photo or shoot for a slightly higher perspective. The hight perspective would also have avoided the playground edging from running through her head. Did you attempt to get any with her actually swinging on the swing-set?
5. Good use of SC. Turn her a bit more from the camera - she's full-square to the camera which is not the most flattering.
6. Busy background and foreground - looses focus on her
7. The swirl - not working for me. Perspective - had you been able to hide her left foot, you might have had a winner - very slimming effect.

Mike J

My3Sons wrote:

Thanks, but that didn't help much, cause you didn't tell me why. I'm needing constructive criticism/comments!

Sorry for the terse reply. I accidently hit submit before I was finished adding how to get the post working correctly. Then I was just too lazy to go back and add more...

#1 - I like this one. Not my favorite of the set but I like it. You avoided the rabbit ears (good) (I need to remember this!) but I agree with Scott's opinion that the color could stand be warmed up a bit.

#2 My favorite. I really like the lines in this one but does her foot look disproportionately large?

#3 - I love shooting on a diagonal but not sure that it works here. The angle just creates an uneasy feeling for me.

#4 2nd favorite of the set. My only nit is the landscape edging running through the top of her head. Maybe cloning it out? Or download the trial version of Bokeh from Alien Skin?

#5, #6 - Not a fan of the picture frame concept

#7 -Again, for my tastes, the concept does not work for me.

My3Sons

All of these comments are so helpful. I didn't think that #1 was too hot, but if so many of you are saying that it is, then it must be, so I'll have to fix that one. My husband's computer monitor is not calibrated, and mine is, so I can see 2 different versions of each picture, and it is so hard to decide how to edit each picture for color and contrast. I finally decided to edit according to my calibrated monitor, since it is so close to the way the pictures will print... in the long run it saves me time from haveing to edit each pic twice. On the black & white/color picture frame picture, I wasn't sure if I should make the inside of the frame to be color or BW. I went with color, but maybe the hands should be color too? Couldn't decide. On the last picture, I hadn't noticed before, but I guess her foot does appear to be the same width as her shoulders! How odd. This pictures was actually created accidentally. The lighting was super dim, and somehow I rotated my camera before the shutter was done closing, which is what created the swirl background. On an identical (unswirled) shot, I cut out the subject and pasted it onto the swirled shot background. My senior client loves it. Not sure what mom thinks, probably doesn't like as much. Oh well, can't please everyone.

Thanks again for all the comments so far.

jeffreaux2

1- Your best shot. It could definately benifit from a bit more warmth, and easing off a bit on the vignette. If the bottom of her feet look dirty in a larger version you need to clean them up before printing.

2-Im not crazy about the pose or composition, but I like the warmth.

3-Again, could use some warmth. Cloning out the window above her might also help....

4-I REALLY like this shot. I dont like that you tried some crazy blurring on the distant houses. A better alternative would have been framing from slightly higher. As it is, with a 5x7 crop you could get rid of that altogether. The gravel retainer running through her head is a no-no, but I could handle that if the rest were perfect.

5-I tell my clients to avoid this style of dress.....over and over. They look cute in person, but in photographs invarably add 30lbs....being sleevless doesn't help. The shorter ones are worse. Mid-thigh length when standing seems like 3 feet shorter when trying a seated pose. So, theres my clothing rant. The frame doesnt work for me. Its trickery that we have all seen before, and I relegate that to the shelf where selective color should also be kept.

6- She is NOT that heavy!....but the dress does her an injustice. Shooting straight on doesnt help either.

7-nah


For fairness, here is an example of one of my recent clients who wore the dress anyway...with the second shot in a different dress, a more fitted one, showing her to be much thinner...





One last note: I think overall you could improve by using a bit of fill flash.

JimM

I think this is a very nice series. The PS effects are very well done and creative. The client really should like them.

CookieS

My favorite is the swing shot. many of the others , just dont say Senior to me.

austinstrobist

I really like #5.

Thanks for sharing!

My3Sons

REPLY TO JEFFREAUX2. FOR SOME REASON THIS REPLY DID NOT HIGHLIGHT THE QUOTES I AM REPLYING TO, SO I WILL PUT THEM IN QUOTATION MARKS

"4-I REALLY like this shot. I dont like that you tried some crazy blurring on the distant houses."

You could tell?!!!

"5-I tell my clients to avoid this style of dress.....over and over. They look cute in person, but in photographs invarably add 30lbs....being sleevless doesn't help. The shorter ones are worse. Mid-thigh length when standing seems like 3 feet shorter when trying a seated pose. So, theres my clothing rant. The frame doesnt work for me. Its trickery that we have all seen before, and I relegate that to the shelf where selective color should also be kept."

Good point on the dress. Client REALLY wanted the frame and color effects.


"One last note: I think overall you could improve by using a bit of fill flash.[/quote]"

I need help with the whole fill flash thing. I have the SB600 but haven't figured out how to use it outside yet. Everytime I try, my subject is completely overexposed- horribly. I've only mastered inside, bouncing the flash. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

By the way... awesome senior pics you posted. LOVE THEM.

jeffreaux2

My3Sons wrote:

REPLY TO JEFFREAUX2. FOR SOME REASON THIS REPLY DID NOT HIGHLIGHT THE QUOTES I AM REPLYING TO, SO I WILL PUT THEM IN QUOTATION MARKS

"4-I REALLY like this shot. I dont like that you tried some crazy blurring on the distant houses."

You could tell?!!!

Yes...its pretty obvious as it is REALLY blurry, but there is no gradual fall-off to it. For that you would need to use a gradient mask on a blurred layer....allowing the blur to begin right behind your subject....like you would expect with a large aperture lens.

"5-I tell my clients to avoid this style of dress.....over and over. They look cute in person, but in photographs invarably add 30lbs....being sleevless doesn't help. The shorter ones are worse. Mid-thigh length when standing seems like 3 feet shorter when trying a seated pose. So, theres my clothing rant. The frame doesnt work for me. Its trickery that we have all seen before, and I relegate that to the shelf where selective color should also be kept."

Good point on the dress. Client REALLY wanted the frame and color effects.

I understand that and would back that up with....The client may not always be right, but the client is always the client!



"

One last note: I think overall you could improve by using a bit of fill flash

I need help with the whole fill flash thing. I have the SB600 but haven't figured out how to use it outside yet. Everytime I try, my subject is completely overexposed- horribly. I've only mastered inside, bouncing the flash. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

By the way... awesome senior pics you posted. LOVE THEM

There are two things you need to know for outdoor fill with that flash.

-High Speed Synch(thats what canon calls it not sure of Nikon's equivilent)

-FEC(flash exposure compensation) This isn't to be confused with exposure compensation and applies only to the output of the flash....it should be in your manual. It might either be controlled on the camera menu...or on the flash. Again, I am not familiar with Nikon systems, but its there for sure....somewhere.

- Shoot in manual or AV mode with the flash in ETTL in high speed synch mode. Use the FEC to dial it back so you arent throwing new shadows around. Easy as pie!

Mike J

jeffreaux2 wrote:

-High Speed Synch(thats what canon calls it not sure of Nikon's equivilent)

On the Nikon D80, this is the Auto FP setting. You need to turn this to on. This is item #25 in the custom settings menu. This allows you to get a shutter speed faster than 1/250 when shooting outdoors. If you haven't found this link yet, I would highly recommend: http://nikonclspracticalguide.blogspot.com/2008/03/10-auto-fp-high-speed-sync-explained.html

Qarik

The swing set shot jumped out at me. This is my clear favorite. The rest are decent but don't really grab me for a variety of reasons.

My3Sons

Mike J wrote:

On the Nikon D80, this is the Auto FP setting. You need to turn this to on. This is item #25 in the custom settings menu. This allows you to get a shutter speed faster than 1/250 when shooting outdoors. If you haven't found this link yet, I would highly recommend: http://nikonclspracticalguide.blogspot.com/2008/03/10-auto-fp-high-speed-sync-explained.html

Great- checking out that link. Don't know much about the Auto FP setting, but will deffinetly check into that. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice weather, so I'll have to take my kiddos out for some practicing! Thank you so much.