First Formal Dance

chuckh · October 1, 2006

A series of pictures of my daughter and her friends as they prepared for their first high school formal dance, they were very excited and full of energy. Comments and critique are welcome.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

Zoe · October 1, 2006

Nice! Dof, and bokah are perfect. It really makes a nice backdrop, to compliment her green eyes.

chuckh · October 1, 2006

Zoe wrote:

Nice! Dof, and bokah are perfect. It really makes a nice backdrop, to compliment her green eyes.

Thank you Zoe. :photo

photodoug · October 1, 2006

so nice to capture this event. Pretty girls all done up right and nicely. Then there are the boys....

DavidTO · October 1, 2006

Nice series. They don't look nearly as dorky as I remember from when I was a kid! That one with the glasses is funny with the pursed lips thing she does.

You done good.

chuckh · October 1, 2006

photodoug wrote:

so nice to capture this event. Pretty girls all done up right and nicely. Then there are the boys....

Thank you Doug, my wife did the "up-do's" for our daughter and her two friends. She also trimmed out son's blonde hair, at least as much as he would let her trim anyway.

The group had a great time, here is an image of the whole troop before we headed down to the school for formal pictures:

chuckh · October 1, 2006

DavidTO wrote:

Nice series. They don't look nearly as dorky as I remember from when I was a kid! That one with the glasses is funny with the pursed lips thing she does.

You done good.

Thank you very much David! The one with the "myspace look" is my daughter who's twin brother is the blonde headed young man.

They look very grown up for a collection of 14 year olds!!!

Scott_Quier · October 1, 2006

WOW

#1 - #5 are absolutely stunning - and the photography's not bad either.

Seriously, very nice control of DOF and the focus on the girls is tack sharp!

And, I kinda like the, is goofy too strong a word here, look on #2. Regardless, her look, with the glasses and all, is just great.

You did good!

SteveM · October 1, 2006

Wow. Incredible shots. The branch on the left in #4 is within the focal plane and a little distracting, but could easily be cloned out. Beautiful work. If you can make gangly, awkward teens look that good, everything else is cake! Gorgeous.

Ted Szukalski · October 1, 2006

I like the photos.
Not sure if it is just me but I think they have tonal range shifted towards yellow. You may want to play with levels to get more natural skin tones (red a bit up and green a bit down).

chuckh · October 1, 2006

Scott_Quier wrote:

WOW

#1 - #5 are absolutely stunning - and the photography's not bad either.

Seriously, very nice control of DOF and the focus on the girls is tack sharp!

And, I kinda like the, is goofy too strong a word here, look on #2. Regardless, her look, with the glasses and all, is just great.

You did good!

Thank you Scott for nice comments. :ivar

My daughter with the glasses has a certain "comfortableness" to how she poses. It's like, it's a maturing person with a confident, but not confident assurance about oneself.

DavidS · October 1, 2006

Great shots!

saurora · October 1, 2006

Wow, those are really excellent!!! I bet they love these! DOF is great, and the bokeh is perfect. I agree with Ted that the skin tones lean towards yellow, but otherwise you did a superlative job!!!

donek · October 2, 2006

I see something that I'm constantly fighting. You seem to have more unused real estate above the heads than below the feet. I frequently find myself cutting off feet while keeping the head and empty space. You haven't done that, but I'm still left with this distraction. Maybe it's just me. Can someone else comment on this in portraits? Is this better composition or would it be more appropriate to have an equal amount of background/foreground above the head and below the feet in this situation?

SteveM · October 2, 2006

donek wrote:

I see something that I'm constantly fighting. You seem to have more unused real estate above the heads than below the feet. I frequently find myself cutting off feet while keeping the head and empty space. You haven't done that, but I'm still left with this distraction. Maybe it's just me. Can someone else comment on this in portraits? Is this better composition or would it be more appropriate to have an equal amount of background/foreground above the head and below the feet in this situation?

IMO, I think the composition in these is near perfect. If you border the head with the edge of the frame it appears more like a driver's license photo than a fine portrait. Something needs to be present to give some sense of depth and he only uses a small portion of the frame to achieve it. As for the full length shots, the shallow foreground gives a sense of gravity and grounds the subjects. If he were to crop more centered with equal distance above and below not only would it make the subjects appear smaller and less important, but give them the illusion of floating in free space and take away much of the natural feel to these. Lets keep in mind the "rule of thirds" and to always try to avoid placing things dead center. Just my opinion.