Were you using lights?? The light on her face seems a bit harsh versus her arms. I have never done this type of photography so take my comments for what they are worth but her face seems "washed" out a bit for such a lovely subject.
Dan
Edited by mdbassman on May 01, 2008 at 07:07 AM GMT
as mdbassman says, light brighter from the chest up. You also might want to use a reflector to balance out your light. Other than that, nice shot.
As I am sure you are well aware, she is drop dead gorgeous!
Sorry guys - but I really like this. Yes her face is on the verge of a blowout but I really like the light falloff from top to bottom and I like the cute smile of his friend. In my opinion, it needs a bit of dodging and burning - nothing more.
From a technical standpoint it looks a bit washed out because it is overexposed by about 1/3 stop to the point where the red channel is clipping in the brightest skintones. Here it is with a Levels correction to bring the tonal values down to where they should be in a well exposed file:
As for the other aspects of the shot, the pose comes across as very static because she is standing square to the camera with weight equal on both feet. That's OK if its the look you wanted, but If you had turned her body obliquely and had her shift her weight to the back foot, bending the front knee slightly the body language would be more dynamic and feminine.
So, is there really any harm in having the face lit a tad bit more than the arms? It seems to hold the focus of the eye there without the distraction of something just as bright in the bottom of the photo.
Chuck, I like your explanations on posing and weight distribution- quite helpful.
DannyG wrote:
So, is there really any harm in having the face lit a tad bit more than the arms? It seems to hold the focus of the eye there without the distraction of something just as bright in the bottom of the photo.
Contrast attracts attention so if you want the viewer to gravitate towards the FRONT of face the best strategy is to make it contrast the most with the background. On a dark background making the front "mask" of the face brighter will make it contrast. On a white background its usually either dark hair framing the face or the COLOR contrast of the skin tone which is the attractive force:
On a light background there ideally needs to be a two-stage contrast dynamic. The first is easy, contrasting the head with the background so its easy to locate in the photo. But then within the face you also need to define its shape with a gradient of highlight and shadow by defining the "mask" of highlights on forehead, top of cheeks, ridge of nose, chin and mouth:
DannyG wrote
Chuck, I like your explanations on posing and weight distribution- quite helpful.
I learned that simple but effective "feet-up" technique working for Monte Zucker back in the 1970s shooting weddings. He had learned it from Joe Zeltsman who was one of the first to teach a body-language-based "masculine" and "feminine" posing techniques. See: http://super.nova.org/DPR/Technique/ZZ.html which also has a link to Zeltsman's tutorial.
Many of today's photographers seem to distain and avoid anything conventional such as classic lighting patterns or poses or fail to understand what made them conventions. A slim and symmetrical appearance is the result of facial angle and lighting pattern working together to create the illusion of 3D shape in the mind of the viewer. Our brains are conditioned to accept brighter areas of as being higher or closer and darker areas as being lower or further away. When we see a pattern of contrast in a flat photo the brain matches the pattern to a stored inventory of patterns of objects and faces to recognize it as 3D. If the highlight / shadow pattern does not match what the brain thinks an object should look like, a person will have difficulty seeing it. For example, have you ever searched for your car keys only to discover they were right in front of you, but turned in some odd way? Your eyes saw them but your brain didn't register them as being your keys because they didn't match your mental image of what your keys looked like. A similar process occurs with facial recognition. The more a face looks like a conventional representation of a face with highlights on the forehead, top of cheeks and chin the more quickly a viewer will connect with it. It has nothing at all to do with rules, its just very fundamental cause and effect of human perception.
Short lighting is most effective for oblique facial views on dark backgrounds because it perfectly defines the front mask of the face with highlight in a way which makes a human face look as slim and symmetrical as possible with a camera because it makes the narrow front of the face contrast with the background, even though the broad side of the face is turned to the camera. What makes it work isn't just the bright light on the front of the face, but rather the contrast of the brighter front with the darker side of the head and darker background. Think CONTRAST not just lighting. Since slim and symmetrical are two qualities attractive faces have, short lighting on a dark background will flatter most people.
But when the background is light the contrast dynamic flips and the bright far side of the face created by short lighting can cause the far side of the face to blend into the background too much. On white backgrounds broad lighting is actually more effective for oblique views. It makes the far side of the face darker then the near side and contrast most strongly with the background while at the same time making the side of the head facing the camera lighter and blend into the background - the opposite contrast dynamic short lighting has on a dark one. But the shadow side of the face needs to be bright enough to reveal the detail in the far eye to facilitate eye contact.
Butterfly, where the key and fill are aligned vertically with the nose of the subject, is an ideal lighting pattern for full-face poses on any background. A full-face pose is symmetrical. It does not flatter most people because the wider stacked planes of the head behind the eyes make the face appear to the camera to be an oval or as round and flat as a dinner plate. A quality models tend to have are faces which are naturally slim and symmetrical and are flattered by full-face poses. If a full-face pose is over-laid with a sideways short lighting pattern the net effect is an asymmetrical looking face: the brighter side will look wider. But if a butterfly pattern is use the downward symmetrical pattern of shadows on the cheekbones perfectly complements the symmetry of the pose and thus is a logical first choice for creating an overall look which is slimming and symmetrical via the "mask" defined with highlight and shadow.
Lighting, in the holistic sense, involves selecting a background which coordinates with the clothing so they will not distract from the face, then selecting the lighting strategy which will cause the FRONT of the face to contrast strongly against that background.
A black dress will distract from the face less on a dark background. On a dark background short lighting will be most flattering for an oblique pose, butterfly for a full face view.
A white dress will distract from the face less on a white background. On a white background low ratio broad lighting will be most flattering for an oblique pose, butterfly for a full face view.
