Shooting the girlfriend (With a camera)

[Viridian]

So I brought my camera over my girlfriends house to just mess around, let me know what you guys think please











Thanks again guys:
Zach

[Donald]

Good, creative stufff. I'd wonder about cropping the one of her dancing, even tighter. I don't think we need to see so much deck in the foreground. And that watermark ......................!

I realise that you were working with what you had in terms of background. But the idea of that one is great and it's just a pity you couldn't have got a less cluttered background. The trees are great in their own right, but I'm not sure that the combination of them and your girlfriend in this pose, works so well. Maybe others will disagree.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Zach,

Shooting from the hip here ...

1. Very photogenic young lady -- you're very lucky to be able to have her model for you.

2. Images 1 & 2 ... good "out of the box" thinking ... the image work, although personally, my brain can't evaluate a face that's upside down. I quickly rotated the image 180 degrees and preferred the new orientation.

3. Image 4 has great potential, but you need to get more light onto her face as the back lighting is competing for the exposure a little too successfully. A reflector or a flash would work wonders.

4. Teeth are quite yellow - would be more flattering to retouch them a little in Photoshop (please don't be offended by that suggestion - it's something I see a lot - and it's just the way it is. Many people have the highest standards of personal health and dental hygiene, but still have very yellow teeth -- just they way some of use are made).

5. Images 3 & 5 don't do anything for me, sorry. I can see what you're trying to do with #5, but you need to crop it more aggressively to get the eye higher in the frame, at a minimum.

Hope this helps.

[Viridian]

Thank you guys for your criticism. And Donald, I'm going through the stage of figuring out a decent watermark. This one will be scraped quite soon

[Donald]

And Donald, I'm going through the stage of figuring out a decent watermark. This one will be scraped quite soon

Some, including me, would say that the best one is none at all.

[RustBeltRaw]

Some, including me, would say that the best one is none at all.

Photographically, I agree. I'm sure you'd find mine quite obnoxious (as I do), but it's a necessary, theft-prevention evil for online distribution.

Image 1 is great; lots of personality. I think the vignetting's a bit too strong, and the floorboards are pointing the viewer's eye in a slightly distracting direction. Might want to try recomposing with the boards at a diagonal, or horizontal relative to the camera.

[Donald]

Photographically, I agree. I'm sure you'd find mine quite obnoxious (as I do), but it's a necessary, theft-prevention evil for online distribution.

Have to disagree with you on that one, Lex. It's the easiest thing in the world to get rid of by anyone who wants to steal your image. You own copyright irrespective of whether you put a watermark on your image or not. So, doing so, doesn't strengthen your legal position.

Many members don't agree that the inclusion of a watermark lessens the quality of an image. That's fine. I tend to think it does and on the basis that it doesn't provide any real protection, I don't use it.

But, of course, it's one of those issues that raises a lot of debate and argument and there's not a lot of room for negotiation between the 'must have it' camp and the 'it's not needed' camp. People seem to quickly form pretty entrenched views, one way or the other.

[rpcrowe]

You have a wonderfully fresh and photogenic subject. She apears to be at ease in front of the lens which is a wonderful start.

Your first shot is taken from quite a creative angle. In fact, you seem to be thinking "outside the box" with several of these images. I would like to see it without the vignette and watermark and with a little closer cropping. Another variation of this type of shot can be done at a slight angle.

Here is an example, I don't want to hijack your thread by posting it. This is certainly not a suggestion that this angle is better than yours, just different but, along the same line...

http://rpcrowe.smugmug.com/Portraits...1358&k=sJ3wNHW

I totally agree with the previous posts about watermarks... I generally dislike them! I can certainly understand a photographer wanting to get credit for his or her shots, but often watermarks interfere with the images themselves and the larger the watermark, the greater the impact...

Please keep shooting and posting images...

[Colin Southern]

Photographically, I agree. I'm sure you'd find mine quite obnoxious (as I do), but it's a necessary, theft-prevention evil for online distribution.

Essentially, all they do is ruin the image for "73.08%" of people and are 99.99999 percent ineffective against the 0.00000001% of people who want to steal them. (you show me a watermark and I'll show you it removed 10 seconds later).