Here are some pics from a recent shoot for a hair stye magazine. The styling was taken care of by the magazine. Not quite my choice of hair do. I might retouch the lighter hair parts to match the rest of the hair for my own folio, but this is what's going in the magazine (unless I make any last-minute retouches. CC welcome).
In 1 and 6, that bkg works exceedingly well to bring attention to the hair, especially in 1, where the gray jacket blends with the bkg.
The rest are very visually cluttered with the introduction of the mirror (confuses the eyes) and the various necklaces, patterned skirt(!) and earrings. I understand that may have been what the mag put together, I just think...why? If they wanted to show off the hair it doesn't make sense to me.
I think the photos of the people are good (well lit and posed) but the backgrounds make it harder for me to appreciate the hair styling (on the women).
It looks like the interior of a "goth inspired" hair salon.
To me, the lighting looks very nice. It sounds like you had no say in the choice of hair or clothing... the smudged mirror bothers me - but maybe that is the look the client wanted. I just spent tons of time cloning out smudges on a dance studio mirror. The client insisted it was OK, along with mats stacked up that I also cloned out. I guess because of that, now smudged mirrors/glass jumps out at me.
Strong points in the set are the lighting and posing.
The idea of using the mirror is a good one - two looks in one picture and maybe a front and back view. However I don't think it really worked well in this set.
Each mirror reflection image (#2 #3 #4 & #5 shows only a flat uninteresting reflection. I'll be the first to say pulling this off isn't easy, however.
You'd have to arrange lighting for the back of the hair as well as the front, so the reflection would be attractive too and show more of the 'product'.
The other lighting worked well, although I agree the background is too dark and some hair is blending into the background instead of contrasting with it. The patterned skirt, already mentioned by jfinite, was a distraction for me too. Necklaces didn't bother me.
I think cropping through the hand in #4 was not best.
#5 is my pick of the set. Nice balance in the composition and the only issue being the brightness of the skirt tends to pull the eye downward. Cropping some of the skirt may help.
#6 (the gent) is nicely done, except the right side blends into the background and becomes a solid black blob. An adjustment of the background lighting may have helped you there.
I just got feedback from the magazine about this shoot. They said it was the best shoot in the history of the magazine! I'm pretty chuffed with that feedback but interesting that it was received so negatively here. Anyway, it has already lead to recommendations and new jobs
