First off, good for you for getting right into experimental mode and doing some real-world work. I'd say the results are quite encouraging and if you can persuade your friend to sit for you again, do it.
Here I will veer into personal preferences, so take with the usual grain-of. My technical issues in the shot you submitted for critique: - redness of face and neck and general skin blotchiness detract from this being an idealized figure study. Pretty easy fix: go B&W. You'll see in your b&w's that they look much better for overall evenness of skin tones. - hot spots. Your light source isn't soft enough yet. B&W will help here too. Investigate strip-light softboxes. You can craft DIY ones. - too much detail. In a figure study like this I don't want to see pores, uncomplimentary lines, etc. I suggest some retouching -- not a lot! -- just enough to "idealize" your subject. Eg: try using the Distort -> Diffuse Glow filter. Put it on a layer so you can mask its effect on eyes and lips. My go-to filter is Imagenomic Portraiture, but it's pricey. You could try out Portrait Professional. Disable its myriad default actions (like facial feature reshaping) and just enable skin softening features. - pose: needs work. :-) It's fine, even pretty good, and you filled the frame nicely, but that angle on her face isn't to my taste. Avoid arranging her body so you are shooting square-on. You should try to angle her trunk more to avoid putting on extra weight. Try also to use the longest tele focal lengths you can manage in the space. Get up on a ladder to help that. Study art books. Look up Edward Weston's nudes. But again, good stuff, Larry! On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 4:05 PM, Larry Colen <l...@red4est.com> wrote: > In the spirit of Jeff Foxworthy, > > If your girlfriend comes home to find a naked woman on your couch, and she > doesn't bat an eye, you might be a photographer. > > As I mentioned, I've been jonesing to do some photography on a higher level > than I've had the opportunity for lately. A friend came over last night to > visit, and I convinced her to let me do some art nudes of her. I set up the > photos up keeping in mind the discussions on the "improving my technical > quality" thread. I meant to use both the strobes and the tripod but I found > that with a fidgety model trying to use a tripod would be too impractical. I > suppose I should have used my monopod, but I don't think I'm seeing too much > camera blur. > > It was a fun set because I'd describe my friend as more classically pretty > than conventionally pretty. She's six foot tall, about 190 pounds and has > cerebral palsy. In other words, she's not as slim as modern American tastes > dictate, but well within the preferences of "figure artists". I do need to > learn a lot more about lighting, but still managed to get some acceptable > photos. I am feeling the need for a larger softbox to get softer lighting, > without blasting photons all over background that I may not want lit. > > Most of these were shot with a grid on my white lightning off stage right, > with some sort of fill, from stage left. My fill light was one of those $25 > strobes that you can screw into a light socket. Many of them with a softbox > on it. I was going to use the strobe that the softbox actually fits, but the > bulb for it got broken since I last used it. > > My friend wanted any pictures posted to flickr to be under "restricted > access" so that only people willing to see "adult content" can see them. So > I'm sorry if anyone wants to see them and doesn't have a flickr account. > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/sets/72157629987056554/ > > I posted them at full resolution, because I'm actively seeking feedback, > primarily on technical issues right now, and you can't pixel peep low-rezzed > photos. > > Since feedback on a whole set is a lot of work so well, I'm picking this one, > as my favorite, to specifically ask for critique on, but feel free to give me > suggestions on any of them: > > standard: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/7309874796/ > > full resolution: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/7309874796/sizes/o > > K-5 DA*16-50 at 34mm ISO 80 1/160 f/8 > > They were all shot with the 16-50. I thought about using primes, but the > 16-50 is sharp enough at f/8-16 and a lot more versatile. > > -- > Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est > > > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- -bmw -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
