03-18-2011, 02:09 AM
Noooo!
Don't start your portrait odyssey by messing around with any of those 'instant portrait' filters/plugins for the computer.
I feel you should start with the basics about lighting first - would these shots have been better with fill-in flash or a reflector? Did you underexpose the first shot, or is that computer fiddling that's made the background so dark?
The first shot is very heavy on the blacks, which might look great at first, but this kind of shot creates 'eye fatigue' after while and viewers don't bother looking at the details.
Then it might pay to start looking at composition and poses - there are some fantastic books on the subject and also very good internet articles posted by generous photographers sharing their tricks. In the second picture, her off-camera gaze is arresting, but is she in the right place in the frame? Try a square crop just behind her left shoulder and start experimenting with the 'standard' frame divisions.
The first photo obviously has a large, meaningless space to the left of the subject - this is the space that should be occupied by her out-of-focus daughter on a swing in the background (for example).
Overall, the photos look too processed to me - but that may be due to the compression. My advice would be to try taking as many different types of portrait as you can until you can get a few killer shots (good lighting, good pose, good composition) without the help of any computer tricks. After you can confidently and consistently take 'good' portraits without any post-processing, you can move on to using computer tricks (there's a zillion programmes out there, you can spend a lifetime on 'em.)
Personally, I think doing exclusively B&W photos is one of the best instructive methods when starting out doing portraits, but that's a matter of taste.
Don't start your portrait odyssey by messing around with any of those 'instant portrait' filters/plugins for the computer.
I feel you should start with the basics about lighting first - would these shots have been better with fill-in flash or a reflector? Did you underexpose the first shot, or is that computer fiddling that's made the background so dark?
The first shot is very heavy on the blacks, which might look great at first, but this kind of shot creates 'eye fatigue' after while and viewers don't bother looking at the details.
Then it might pay to start looking at composition and poses - there are some fantastic books on the subject and also very good internet articles posted by generous photographers sharing their tricks. In the second picture, her off-camera gaze is arresting, but is she in the right place in the frame? Try a square crop just behind her left shoulder and start experimenting with the 'standard' frame divisions.
The first photo obviously has a large, meaningless space to the left of the subject - this is the space that should be occupied by her out-of-focus daughter on a swing in the background (for example).
Overall, the photos look too processed to me - but that may be due to the compression. My advice would be to try taking as many different types of portrait as you can until you can get a few killer shots (good lighting, good pose, good composition) without the help of any computer tricks. After you can confidently and consistently take 'good' portraits without any post-processing, you can move on to using computer tricks (there's a zillion programmes out there, you can spend a lifetime on 'em.)
Personally, I think doing exclusively B&W photos is one of the best instructive methods when starting out doing portraits, but that's a matter of taste.