As for the pose, she was leaning with her elbows on a deck railing, looking down at the river below, which at the time appeared as a perfectly natural pose.
The color of her eyes is natural. I am attaching a crop with before (out-of-camera raw) and after post-processing.
http://i48./mmwlxc.jpg
I actually turned the magenta saturation down in post-processing, as well as made it darker, but I thought that the hoodie and its color in general balances well with the whole.
A perfectly natural pose does not always translate well in a photograph. For some people, it's very natural to slouch, and that doesn't always look great in a picture.
But this is even more true (imo) when the picture is cropped as tightly as this one, so her pose is now out of context. If you pull back wider so you can see her leaning on the deck railing, then it may appear more natural. Pull it back even further so you can see her full body, again it may appear more natural. Just my opinion.
I think you could improve the photo by cropping some (or a lot) of the hoodie. It is bright and takes up lots of the frame. Once it is reduced, she will be the feature of the shot.
Also, you have the hair cropped on the top and again on the bottom. That rarely looks best.
I find when hair hangs down, make sure you show the ends of it to make it "complete".
Jim Rickards wrote:
I think you could improve the photo by cropping some (or a lot) of the hoodie. It is bright and takes up lots of the frame. Once it is reduced, she will be the feature of the shot...
Thanks. I had it originally cropped to an 8x10 ratio, eliminating the "excess" hoodie, but later decided that the whole image gives a bit more sense to the posture:
friscoron wrote:
... Do you have anything else from this shoot?
A couple of others, but none worth showing. I do have, however, one from another shoot, a few days earlier. Shot in an alley, next to a mural, illuminated by a setting sun:
It is a very nice capture but if you are looking for ideas on how to make the next one in a similar situation even better look at how you captured the far side of her face with the camera angle and consider what it would have looked like instead if she had either turned a bit more towards you or you had been able to move around more to the left. Instead of the far eye being partially blocked by the nose and the far side of the face disappearing you'd see both eyes and a more balanced looking view of the far side that reveals the > notch of the eye socket, the "apple" ( of the cheekbone, and better reveal that graceful compound curve from eye, over cheek, down to the chin which is only hinted at from this camera angle. Had you moved to the right relative to her face the far side would have disappeared from view and you'd capture a perfect "face on a coin" profile.
So next time she's in a mood to pose or just sitting still in nice light walk around her face from full to profile and as you shoot observe how the way the 3D shape is rendered in the 2D photo changes dramatically with only a slight change in camera POV. Comparing the photos you'll be able to sort out which are the most flattering angles. What you'll find is that once your brain is consciously aware of which angles are most balanced looking and flattering your camera will start to find them automatically without much conscious thought.
My apologies to anyone who visited this thread in the last two days and got a message that the last two posted images (posts #10 and #11) were "temporarily unavailable". Looks like PhotoShelter is not exactly user-friendly when it comes to embedding photos into forums.
