Top Gun wrote:
As stated above but worth reiterating, the whites are too white. I can barely see any of the details in the shirt and can not tell where the background and the shirt are separate. Overall, I get the strongest feeling from number 2, meaning that the model is engaging the viewer, the light on her face is even and well exposed. Unlike number 1, her hair in this picture is controlled which is not distracting me, as well it looks good being pushed to one side. The red jewelry she is wearing keeps the viewers eye to the right side of the frame but moves your eye from her face near the top down towards the middle of the picture, from here my eyes followed her body line to the left, bringing me all the way through the picture. Other than the whites being blown out I think this is a great picture. However, after reducing the brightness I would imagine that you would need to do something to get the model to pop out of the background.
These are just my thoughts on the photo, I hope they were helpful in some way.
Jim Rickards wrote:
Like many of the others, I find the white-on-white a bit of a problem. The clothing blends into the background just a bit too much.
The white on white and the posing for the most part are fine with me. The images look somewhat cold to me, by which I mean they don't seem to evoke much interest besides looking pretty. I don't mean this in a pejorative way, but they look like catalog shots- meant to be a clear documentation of an object. The posing is routine (again, not being mean, just trying for constructive criticism). I don't know if you did a lot of post-processing, but there's such a digital look to the images that even if you did very little PP, I'd say they look overprocessed. Maybe it's the studio thing- with evenly lit white seamless, the subject has to carry 100% of the image since there's zero mood coming from the background. It's tough to do with restrained posing and relatively large flat lighting. She is a gorgeous subject though.
There's an old photo school exercise for white on white, where you shoot an egg on a white background. One of the points of the exercise is that
1) True white lacks detail
2) We are programmed to want to see the foreground object as brighter than the background most of the time.
3) Thus, in order to convey something that registers to our eyes as white-on-white, you typically want the background to be a slightly darker (but still bright) gray than the foreground object. If the foreground object is darker than the background, it registers as dingy.
Its a tightrope act, but as a general rule I think you might have better luck with "white" on "white" if you ease off on the background light a bit and let it fall off to gray just a smidge. It will still register to the eye as a white background, even if its actually just a light gray. It may not be the only way to do it, but its the "tried and true." As Steady said, though... exposure can be a matter of taste.
Evan Baines wrote:
There's an old photo school exercise for white on white, where you shoot an egg on a white background. One of the points of the exercise is that
1) True white lacks detail
2) We are programmed to want to see the foreground object as brighter than the background most of the time.
3) Thus, in order to convey something that registers to our eyes as white-on-white, you typically want the background to be a slightly darker (but still bright) gray than the foreground object. If the foreground object is darker than the background, it registers as dingy.
Its a tightrope act, but as a general rule I think you might have better luck with "white" on "white" if you ease off on the background light a bit and let it fall off to gray just a smidge. It will still register to the eye as a white background, even if its actually just a light gray. It may not be the only way to do it, but its the "tried and true." As Steady said, though... exposure can be a matter of taste.
ladytx wrote:
Thanks for the feedback. I did a re-edit of one of the photos and brought it down some. Maybe better?
Yes, I like the additional detail, but there may be a little bit of a blue bias in the shirt and background now (I'm on a bad monitor right now, so I could be wrong).
