For me, most of these are *almost* there. Here is what I mean:
(1) awkward crop, flower petals have brown edges to them, taking away from the "purity" of the image
(2) probably my favorite of the set, love how her hair matches the object in the background
(4) I love backlit images, but the background is too bright for her face, takes away the focus on her
(6) a bit of adjusting could have avoided the hot spot on her nose and forehead
(7) awkward hand / thumb position. flat exposure could be saved in PP. it appears that her hair matches the chain, but too dark / dull to know for sure.
(8) "up the nose" POV is rarely flattering. blurry hand coming out of nowhere.
Overall, she seems to only have one "look". It is up to us (IMO) to bring variety to a set and, for the most part here, her expression is *cut and paste* from one image to the next.
gheller wrote:
For me, most of these are *almost* there. Here is what I mean:
(1) awkward crop, flower petals have brown edges to them, taking away from the "purity" of the image
(2) probably my favorite of the set, love how her hair matches the object in the background
(4) I love backlit images, but the background is too bright for her face, takes away the focus on her
(6) a bit of adjusting could have avoided the hot spot on her nose and forehead
(7) awkward hand / thumb position. flat exposure could be saved in PP. it appears that her hair matches the chain, but too dark / dull to know for sure.
(8) "up the nose" POV is rarely flattering. blurry hand coming out of nowhere.
Overall, she seems to only have one "look". It is up to us (IMO) to bring variety to a set and, for the most part here, her expression is *cut and paste* from one image to the next.
Gheller did provide some great observations and some adjustments could be made in post to make the images even stronger. I might arm wrestle with him on #7, however. I think the tension in her eyes is matched by the tension in her hand. I don't have a problem with it.
On the plus side, your overall composition was good and use of color was very pleasing. In addition, your depth of field was appropriate for the various images. I probably would have tried to used a bit more blur on the flowers in #1, but I also might have missed it. That's why I now shoot tethered most days.
Bottom line - There's a lot of good photography here.
I've re-processed all the images. It's interesting how our processing procedures evolve over time. I found that the camera profile selected in ACR was set to Adobe Std, so I changed that to Camera Std.
Colin, #2 is the best, but #4 could have been with lighting corrections in PP - imo. I agree with JBPhotog about the eyes needing catchlights, but the shadows in the eye sockets are too dark. Not suggesting to eliminate them - just filling the shadows with a bit more light. I wouldn't crop through the middle of a hand. I enjoyed your set of images - thanks for sharing them.
Jim
Your second image was my favorite, the line of her divided hair coming down towards her eye, with her head tilted to the side was perfect. Not seeing the hands completely was the only distraction, if you could show the hands and do a portrait crop it could really draw attention to her.
