----- Original Message ----- From: "Shel Belinkoff"
Subject: RE: peso: A Small Gallery
Hi Bill,
I looked at these a few times. At first the softness and poses put me off,
but upon more considerate viewing a few stood out as being quite nice.
Overall, I'd agree that a little sharper - at least on most - would make
for a better portrait. Some of the poses seemed awkward, too, but that's
why we shoot more than one frame and more than one pose.
It's funny how this shoot came about. The young lady was a customer of mine a few months ago. She brought in some atrociously shot digital sows ears that she wanted made into silk purses.
I did the best I could, which sadly, wasn't much.
A buggered up digital file is forever.
Anyway, she seemed like a nice kid, and I mentioned that if she needed head shots, I could probably do something for her, mostly just as a passing comment to make conversation while her debit transaction went through. She took my phone number and then last week called me up and asked if the offer was still open.
She had never had a picture session done before, outside of school portraits, and was a wee bit nervous in front of the camera. A lot of the pictures had a deer in the headlights look to them.
Anyway, I've had enough comments about the sharpness that I will put the same shots up in another gallery, but will take the files and discard the gaussian blur layer prior to resizing them for the web.
The 77mm at the stop I was using is a very sharp lens indeed.
I might be falling into a bit of a manipulation trap with the softening stuff. When I shoot film, I will put a Softar on the lens and hope for the best (not quite, but close).
I find that I am doing more image massaging with the digital files than I was in the habit of doing with film, perhaps to the detriment of the images.
Of course, I may just be in the company of a bunch of people who like their pictures overly sharp looking as well......
William Robb
