Critique Guitar player - crit wanted

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Name
Patrick
Edit My Images
Yes
Aiming to improve so all crit/opinions welcome

1 speedlight in a reverse brolly-cum-softbox a little above subject head height and slightly right of camera.

I was aiming for a natural portrait with a bit of punch. All processing in Lightroom.

#1 colour - WB corrected, upped contrast, vibrance and clarity.
RvgQgmG.jpg



#2 Mono
kLfAFOe.jpg


#3 unprocessed SOC for reference
xtk1uRS.jpg
 
Nice shot and very well lit with spot on soft lighting.

To offer you some crit I would say that for me the colour version works much better and the B&W looks a little over exposed perhaps in PP? Also would have been nice to keep the head of the guitar in on the crop although I see the door handle is a bit of a problem could this possibly be cloned out?

Otherwise it is spot on and I think that you have achieved what you were going for. (y)
 
Nice shot and very well lit with spot on soft lighting.

To offer you some crit I would say that for me the colour version works much better and the B&W looks a little over exposed perhaps in PP? Also would have been nice to keep the head of the guitar in on the crop although I see the door handle is a bit of a problem could this possibly be cloned out?

Otherwise it is spot on and I think that you have achieved what you were going for. (y)

Thanks Charlie. Yes, I'm not keen on the mono one, and TBH I need to completely redo the conversion.
The crop is not exactly what I'd like if it had been a planned shoot. We just started with me trying some lighting options and not really looking for a great image, but we found we were getting some usable images and the square crop seemed best.
 
Hi Patrick. I like both images but as a rule do prefer colour over black and white.On what I see here (and this is from a non pro photographer) the skin tones and hair in the sooc camera image are better than the edit, somewhere along the edit line you got his hair to loose some detail and his face as become a bit to dark and maybe saturated.I understand the look you are after and you have mananged to get the colour in there but I think the punch is not quite there.

Gaz
 
I'll go against the grain and say I prefer mono for this kind of picture. However, I think the PP could be better in this example, it looks a little overexposed and slightly 'flat' imo.
 
Patrick, the problem for me is location. Because you are cramped you've had to cut the guitar off at both ends and it just feels cramped. Now, this partial shot can work well, but I don't think it does at this angle.

Technically it is fine - looks like natural light - but I'd probably want to see a bit more light on his hair.
 
If for whatever reason you can't get a clear enough shot of a guitar player for a pleasing composition with all the instrument in the frame, the golden rule is to close in to a triangle of face and both hands. Works 95% of the time, but those three elements need to be as close together as possible.

One thing that helps this is to get them to play a tricky chord relatively high up the neck - around the 12th fret. That way you (usually) get an interesting expression too and hopefully some dynamic into the picture so as to avoid the "just sitting here strumming being bored" look.
 
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