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I had the pleasure of taking photos of two lovely girls - they did such a great job! They were so excited to see their photos, especially the older one, who had such a quiet, unique beauty.
Just wonderful beautiful photography Dawn! Your subjects are always so "dressed to the hilt"!
Perfectly, IMHO, exposed and processed.
Again so well executed and presented!!
Dan
I really like your lighting, posing, and the wardrobe styling in all of your shots. With these I can't help but feeling that the white balance is way off, to the point of making one of the sisters so pale to the point of making her look unhealthy. In my opinion when skin tones start looking purple, it's going into "undead" territory. I also feel that the skin processing was taken too far.
I did receive some RL feedback also that the older sister seemed quite pale - I guess I'd just say that she WAS very pale and her sister had some strong olive undertones. Here's a SOOC:
I did add some color to the older sister's lovely face, but didn't want to adjust anything that made her look not like herself. I also noticed that on my other, non calibrated monitor, she does look much paler too!
I hope you don't take my comments as bad natured. I do think you're a great photographer and I'm a fan of your work. Even in the SOOC photo it looks like you might have been using a cooler than necessary white balance resulting in purple leaning skin tones, but that's simply my own opinion. I tend to shoot using purposefully warmer white balance settings out of personal preference.
DanielScott wrote:
I hope you don't take my comments as bad natured. I do think you're a great photographer and I'm a fan of your work. Even in the SOOC photo it looks like you might have been using a cooler than necessary white balance resulting in purple leaning skin tones, but that's simply my own opinion. I tend to shoot using purposefully warmer white balance settings out of personal preference.
Oh no, I didn’t at all! I appreciate you taking the time to comment at all. I don’t calibrate for white balance until I’m in Lightroom on import, and I should start for sure. I think my issue with these girls was that changing global WB made the younger sister look too warm - and I didn’t want to warm up the older alone too much for fear of her not looking like herself. But duly noted and appreciated! The last thing I want is clammy, dead looking skin tones.
I’ve learned so much overall from critique here. Please never stop giving your valuable input!
dawnkyung wrote:
I don’t calibrate for white balance until I’m in Lightroom on import, and I should start for sure.
I suggest you get a WhiBal card and set a custom white balance for the studio. It will take less than a minute at the beginning of each shoot to set a custom white balance on your Fuji. I also suggest you find a way to measure and set the proper exposure at capture. Finally, learn to do more modeling with your lights instead of having to rely on creating highlights and shadows in post. There's a lot of times it is obvious that you've made adjustments like darkening hands and arms that gives the skin an artificial look that it wouldn't have if you had lit to get the effect.
Do these things and it will save a lot of post processing work.
