On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 3:25 PM, Stanley Halpin <[email protected]> wrote: > Another fine portrait Bruce! I would bet that the model is pleased with it.
Thank you, Stan. The model is indeed pleased with this one, and the others too. She's added them all to her modelling portfolio. > I’ll mostly echo others’ comments: > - square crop might be better, but oh well. Though I understand that > photoshoppery can be used to add e.g. blank space on the sides of this shot. > - shadow under the nose is a bit too dark, but oh well. I understand the > tradeoff with cheekbone shading. > - it is a slightly ambiguous pose and expression. I usually prefer photos > without captions - let the viewer see what he/she sees rather then tell them > what they are looking at. In this case, if captioned, I think “Reflection” > might be better - a label for what she is doing rather than a label creating > a story or sorts about why she is reflecting. Well stated, Stan. And I think harkens back to Bill's point -- trying too hard. Good captions are almost as difficult as the original shot. :-) I'll keep your suggestion in mind in future. > On the other hand, I like the pose. I think it looks natural, and I disagree > about her right hand - I often sit that way leaning into (the hidden) part of > my hand. I never would have thought twice about it in this case if I hadn’t > seen Bill’s comment. > However, I think a person's elbows are not particularly attractive, and your > model has two of them right there catching my eye. Not sure what could be > done in this case except maybe to dull the shine on her right elbow and, if > image manipulation is to be part of the equation, desaturating the red in her > elbows just a schoch to lower the color contrast with her arms. Just a minor > nit… Well, that may seem minor but it's the sum of all the tiny fixes that makes for a more esthetic image. This is another case where I zoomed out, examined the big picture and decided that I could live with the redness in her arms toward the elbows, but no sooner did I "publish" than I had second thoughts. So I agree: the elbows should be softened a little and the redness reduced. A high end retoucher would have done that automatically. As far as image manipulation goes: it should surprise no one that it is (almost) always part of my workflow. If you saw the original you'd find that I burned her arms quite a bit already to reduce their brightness relative to her face -- I wanted the emphasis on her face of course -- and specifically burned edges to reduce their apparent width as well. In retrospect I should have desaturated the red too. I may still do that ... > stan > > On Jun 10, 2014, at 1:33 PM, Bruce Walker <[email protected]> wrote: > >> http://off-axis.brucemwalker.com/image/88382325347 >> >> Comments invited. -- -bmw -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
