First of all, Hope she is beautiful!! I really think you nailed the focus. I think a different angle would have made a big difference in where my eye focuses when I look at the photo. For example, she has GORGEOUS eyes, but the angle doesn’t pull me into look there instead my eye keeps scanning the photo. I would also say her skin is blown out with a yellow hue. Try changing the White Balance and checking your levels (or skin tones if you have LR) for adjustments.
I do love the soft shadows that fall just under her chin and around her eye!
What a lovely girl! I love how her hair is blowing in the breeze and you chose a great ap for getting your entire subject in focus. The first thing I notice is the tilt. I’m not a tilt-er, and I think using creative tilts in your photos is personal preference, to a degree. In this image the tilt is rather severe and I find myself tilting my head trying to look at the subject in a more upright position. It feels slightly like she is about to fall out of the frame. Also, the crop chops her chest in half :) If possible, I like to avoid cropping through a woman’s cleavage. It looks as though you have some blown highlights on the subject’s skin (shoulders, chest, cheekbones). If you shot in RAW it may be possible to recover them. In the future, I would encourage you to spot meter off of your subject’s skin in order to get your settings correct. My guess is that you could have used a faster shutter speed :) Finally, I’m not sure what the red thing is next to the subject, but I don’t think it is adding to the story. I would either desaturate the red or crop or clone it out. You identified a great background for a portrait! The texture of the leaves adds nice visual interest without distracting from the subject :)
First the subject of the photo is beautiful and the focus is very good! The tilt on the picture throws me off, I feel like I am falling looking at the photo almost like I want to reach out and stop her from falling on her face. Also the skin is blown out and a bit to bright for my liking. I feel like the brightness of the skin makes the shadows around her eyes appear extra dark and unflattering. It also causes you to lose the details of the beautiful pearls she is wearing. The beautiful green tree background really makes her pop off of the photo but I woud have tried to clone out the red part at the very bottom to make it slightly cleaner overall.
This is my first time writing a critique -so sorry if I don’t use the correct terminology.
Yout photo is beautiful. I love the colors. The contrast is good. The angle is a liitle to much for me. That is one thing I would change. This pic would look great in B&W or sepia. Overall this pic is beautiful and has so much emotion
Beautiful girl and such a sweet, natural expression. I would like to see a bit more of her face. Maybe if you moved more in front of her. The first thing I noticed was the dark around her eyes. I’m sure this can be corrected in post processing but Im still trying to figure that out myself. :). I’m thinking out loud here but maybe if you metered off her eyes and bumped the exposure up a couple of notches you could minimize the shadow when capturing the shot. I still have a lot to learn so that is just a guess based on what little I know. Opening up your aperture would give your background more blur and make your subject pop more. I really like the lighting you captured and the glow it gives the subject.
First of all Hope you are so super talented for your age, and so brave for submitting your photo, I’m not ready to do that at more than double your age. I loved this in B&W for the June contest. The colour is beautiful also, her hair is lovely and her blue eyes are so pretty. Her skin does look overexposed, that’s probably why her eyes look shadowy in comparison. And I do find the tilt of the camera distracting, but I think it’s a hip thing to do…oh my, I’m showing my age! You’ve captured a beautiful expression and I love how her hair is blowing. Your cousin must have been super happy with these portraits.
What a beautiful girl that you have photographed! I love the great focus you have in this shot! Great job with that. The number one thing I see here is that the tilt is too much. I love a good tilt now and then, but I think in this shot your subject loses posture by such an angle. I would love to see this shot taken without the tilt. I do applaude you for trying something out though! Her skin is a little blown out, particularly on her chest. I don’t mind the shadows around the eyes and I suspect that might be actually smokey eye make-up? The only other things I might do is get rid of the purple thing by her, open the aperature a bit, and show a little more of her dress detail. You have shown a lot of potential and I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to ask for a critique yet!
I think the perspective of this shot is interesting and daring. It really isn’t my preference, but I am not your subject/client. Making them happy is the point of portrait photography. The red channel looks blown, but could be fixed in post processing (as said above). But my critique of this shot is that you really aren’t focusing on her face, but you can’t see her dress either. I would crop to remove the arm and it would really help with the blown highlight look, too. That would also remove what appears to be the roof of a car. I do the same thing with my shots all of the time. I don’t fill the frame with my focus. I tend to get too much in the space and then struggle with how I want it to look afterward. If I would just zoom in from the start I would do a lot better. This shot is gorgeous and you did a fantastic job. I would be very proud of it! :)
First off, I want to say how brave you are, Hope, to put your photography out there like this especially at such a young age!! It looks like a captured a real moment which is great. Her skin is over exposed and if you have an editing program like LR you could try to recover it by bringing down the exposure, brightness, and/or adding some recovery. If you want to try to prevent that in camera, I would have increased my shutter speed. Do you have your camera set up so that it flashes on the blown out spots?? I think it is called “highlights” in your camera. If you aren’t sure or need help, email what kind of camera you have and we can see if it is possible. I ALWAYS have this on so I can see if I have blown out the skin. The tilt makes me a little uncomfortable since it does look like she is falling out of the frame. That being said, when I first started I used to tilt like crazy. Tilting is definitely a personal choice and if that is part of your vision than so be it. Your edit looks great with the detail in her hair. It looks like their is something blue peeking through the trees that I would clone out as well as whatever the red thing is by her left shoulder. You definitely picked a great spot to take the picture with a wonderful background that adds to the picture and doesn’t take away from it. I so look forward to seeing more of your work!!! Thank you for being the first to submit your photo!!! You should be so proud of yourself! Just remember that these are just critiques and your vision is what needs to shine through!!! :O)
Oh wow! Thank you everyone for all your critiques and compliments! It has been a real eye-opener to have you critique it and I didn’t even notice half of the things some of you have mentioned! Although it is sort of hard hearing people say bad things about your picture, it’s much more of a learning process than you’d think. If you were debating whether or not to enter a photo for critiques I highly suggest that you do! It’s a really neat experience! :)
Beautiful model, and a great angle of her face. I would like to see the photo at a more natural viewing angle, though. It feels a bit awkward turned so far diagonal. Perhaps backing up/zooming out a little, or zooming in, would improve composition so the arm and dress are not merely peeking at us… I would also suggest adjusting ISO down to help offset overexposure, correcting skin tones as necessary, and cloning out the red object by her back shoulder, and the object in the bottom right hand corner.
You have a nice eye, and I admire you for putting your photo out for critique. :) I’m sure its not easy, but your courage will be rewarded with vast skill improvement! :)
First off I want to say how beautiful the color in her eyes is. I like the depth of field and the dark greens to her light skin. I think what I may have done different is to straighten up the frame. I use to tilt my frame a lot until one day someone going through my photos and asked why I did it. I realized it was lack of composition. Another thing I may have done is used a faster shutter speed or smaller ISO since her skin is so fair. Other than that I thought it was a beautiful photo of a beautiful girl.
First of all, Hope she is beautiful!! I really think you nailed the focus. I think a different angle would have made a big difference in where my eye focuses when I look at the photo. For example, she has GORGEOUS eyes, but the angle doesn’t pull me into look there instead my eye keeps scanning the photo. I would also say her skin is blown out with a yellow hue. Try changing the White Balance and checking your levels (or skin tones if you have LR) for adjustments.
I do love the soft shadows that fall just under her chin and around her eye!
What a lovely girl! I love how her hair is blowing in the breeze and you chose a great ap for getting your entire subject in focus. The first thing I notice is the tilt. I’m not a tilt-er, and I think using creative tilts in your photos is personal preference, to a degree. In this image the tilt is rather severe and I find myself tilting my head trying to look at the subject in a more upright position. It feels slightly like she is about to fall out of the frame. Also, the crop chops her chest in half :) If possible, I like to avoid cropping through a woman’s cleavage. It looks as though you have some blown highlights on the subject’s skin (shoulders, chest, cheekbones). If you shot in RAW it may be possible to recover them. In the future, I would encourage you to spot meter off of your subject’s skin in order to get your settings correct. My guess is that you could have used a faster shutter speed :) Finally, I’m not sure what the red thing is next to the subject, but I don’t think it is adding to the story. I would either desaturate the red or crop or clone it out. You identified a great background for a portrait! The texture of the leaves adds nice visual interest without distracting from the subject :)
First the subject of the photo is beautiful and the focus is very good! The tilt on the picture throws me off, I feel like I am falling looking at the photo almost like I want to reach out and stop her from falling on her face. Also the skin is blown out and a bit to bright for my liking. I feel like the brightness of the skin makes the shadows around her eyes appear extra dark and unflattering. It also causes you to lose the details of the beautiful pearls she is wearing. The beautiful green tree background really makes her pop off of the photo but I woud have tried to clone out the red part at the very bottom to make it slightly cleaner overall.
This is my first time writing a critique -so sorry if I don’t use the correct terminology.
Yout photo is beautiful. I love the colors. The contrast is good. The angle is a liitle to much for me. That is one thing I would change. This pic would look great in B&W or sepia. Overall this pic is beautiful and has so much emotion
Beautiful girl and such a sweet, natural expression. I would like to see a bit more of her face. Maybe if you moved more in front of her. The first thing I noticed was the dark around her eyes. I’m sure this can be corrected in post processing but Im still trying to figure that out myself. :). I’m thinking out loud here but maybe if you metered off her eyes and bumped the exposure up a couple of notches you could minimize the shadow when capturing the shot. I still have a lot to learn so that is just a guess based on what little I know. Opening up your aperture would give your background more blur and make your subject pop more. I really like the lighting you captured and the glow it gives the subject.
First of all Hope you are so super talented for your age, and so brave for submitting your photo, I’m not ready to do that at more than double your age. I loved this in B&W for the June contest. The colour is beautiful also, her hair is lovely and her blue eyes are so pretty. Her skin does look overexposed, that’s probably why her eyes look shadowy in comparison. And I do find the tilt of the camera distracting, but I think it’s a hip thing to do…oh my, I’m showing my age! You’ve captured a beautiful expression and I love how her hair is blowing. Your cousin must have been super happy with these portraits.
What a beautiful girl that you have photographed! I love the great focus you have in this shot! Great job with that. The number one thing I see here is that the tilt is too much. I love a good tilt now and then, but I think in this shot your subject loses posture by such an angle. I would love to see this shot taken without the tilt. I do applaude you for trying something out though! Her skin is a little blown out, particularly on her chest. I don’t mind the shadows around the eyes and I suspect that might be actually smokey eye make-up? The only other things I might do is get rid of the purple thing by her, open the aperature a bit, and show a little more of her dress detail. You have shown a lot of potential and I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to ask for a critique yet!
I think the perspective of this shot is interesting and daring. It really isn’t my preference, but I am not your subject/client. Making them happy is the point of portrait photography. The red channel looks blown, but could be fixed in post processing (as said above). But my critique of this shot is that you really aren’t focusing on her face, but you can’t see her dress either. I would crop to remove the arm and it would really help with the blown highlight look, too. That would also remove what appears to be the roof of a car. I do the same thing with my shots all of the time. I don’t fill the frame with my focus. I tend to get too much in the space and then struggle with how I want it to look afterward. If I would just zoom in from the start I would do a lot better. This shot is gorgeous and you did a fantastic job. I would be very proud of it! :)
First off, I want to say how brave you are, Hope, to put your photography out there like this especially at such a young age!! It looks like a captured a real moment which is great. Her skin is over exposed and if you have an editing program like LR you could try to recover it by bringing down the exposure, brightness, and/or adding some recovery. If you want to try to prevent that in camera, I would have increased my shutter speed. Do you have your camera set up so that it flashes on the blown out spots?? I think it is called “highlights” in your camera. If you aren’t sure or need help, email what kind of camera you have and we can see if it is possible. I ALWAYS have this on so I can see if I have blown out the skin. The tilt makes me a little uncomfortable since it does look like she is falling out of the frame. That being said, when I first started I used to tilt like crazy. Tilting is definitely a personal choice and if that is part of your vision than so be it. Your edit looks great with the detail in her hair. It looks like their is something blue peeking through the trees that I would clone out as well as whatever the red thing is by her left shoulder. You definitely picked a great spot to take the picture with a wonderful background that adds to the picture and doesn’t take away from it. I so look forward to seeing more of your work!!! Thank you for being the first to submit your photo!!! You should be so proud of yourself! Just remember that these are just critiques and your vision is what needs to shine through!!! :O)
Oh wow! Thank you everyone for all your critiques and compliments! It has been a real eye-opener to have you critique it and I didn’t even notice half of the things some of you have mentioned! Although it is sort of hard hearing people say bad things about your picture, it’s much more of a learning process than you’d think. If you were debating whether or not to enter a photo for critiques I highly suggest that you do! It’s a really neat experience! :)
Beautiful model, and a great angle of her face. I would like to see the photo at a more natural viewing angle, though. It feels a bit awkward turned so far diagonal. Perhaps backing up/zooming out a little, or zooming in, would improve composition so the arm and dress are not merely peeking at us… I would also suggest adjusting ISO down to help offset overexposure, correcting skin tones as necessary, and cloning out the red object by her back shoulder, and the object in the bottom right hand corner.
You have a nice eye, and I admire you for putting your photo out for critique. :) I’m sure its not easy, but your courage will be rewarded with vast skill improvement! :)
First off I want to say how beautiful the color in her eyes is. I like the depth of field and the dark greens to her light skin. I think what I may have done different is to straighten up the frame. I use to tilt my frame a lot until one day someone going through my photos and asked why I did it. I realized it was lack of composition. Another thing I may have done is used a faster shutter speed or smaller ISO since her skin is so fair. Other than that I thought it was a beautiful photo of a beautiful girl.