Need critique on a portrait

lzfoto

Had a pleasure of photographing a family over the weekend. I took this one of the mom, and I am wondering how I did...I wanted to blur out the background with the bokeh type of look. Did I do the right thing? What about the color, pose, lighting, and composition. Please advise! Thanks in advance

Snowgirl

Hi. Looks like you got the Bokeh you wanted with the shallow DOF and the lady's face is nice and clear.

Did you alter the green tones in the background? They seem a bit too bright.

I'm not a fan of a forward leaning pose like that - it creates a feeling of tension.

But overall, a nice picture of an attractive lady.

Hackbone

It seems that you might have used a short lens.......50-70ish, did you? There seems to be some distortion. Watch out for the bright area behind her which is distracting and draws you eye away from her bokeh or not. I like the lighting and the shading of light, good job on that. Color might be a tad off but that really is a personal preference.

Svennie

Nice shot! I love portraits with shallow DOF!

Two remarks:
- the forward lean is more or less artificial: the photo is tilted: trees usually grow in a straight line up and her necklace/hair stick to her chest. IMHO the photo will be better when you correct the tilt.
- her face is too centered, I think. Try a crop: top just above the tree line & right over her left shoulder.

zoomer

Just ok...I have seen a lot worse .
In processing take the yellow out of the background, that will tame your bright spot a lot. You could also clone it out or just tame it down if you have a good cloning touch.
Next time check your background before shooting and try to find a place with nice even light...hopefully darker than your subject.
Watch your crop try not to cut things in half.
She is cute and looks like you caught her personality well....which is the main thing.

Sean Ealy

I think that you have some of the basic necessities in this shot. I lean more towards bright images with bright color, which is a personal preference, but you have to make sure that the background isn't brighter than the subject. This will draw the eye of the viewer away from your subject, which has already been said. Also, try to keep the subject out of the middle of the shot, unless you are going for a very specific purpose for which it would be appropriate.

I think that this image is okay, but with a little tweaking could be better than okay. The slight tilt and the pose don't necessarily bother me. The subject is sharp, and I love the depth of field. I think the dullness of the subject is my main nit compared to the rest of the image.

My two cents. Thanks for sharing!

lzfoto

Thank you everyone for the awesome replys. I've been tweaking the image around some more using your advice. The lady was sitting on a giant rock which was on a hill the whole area was in the forest, with the sunlight seeping through the trees, I was standing on the ground which was elevated, so yes, there was a tilt which wasn't planned. I was using my Nikon D50 ... focal length at 58mm and f/3.2, a flash was not used. I am going to clone out the yellow hot spots, and try to make her a little brighter and darken the background. I'll show my final results later. Thank you so much!!!

Bilsen

Very pretty lady and generally a good image but I'm going with Hackbone. It just looks to me like that lens at that angle gave some distortion to her nose area.

Still, nice job.

rpcrowe

I like longer focal lengths
I am a fan of longer focal lengths when shooting portraits because I think that they are more flattering. The shorter focal length with the subject leaning towards the camera distorts her nose.