My first attempt at a portrait (*another image added*)

chris321

chris321

I like the ginger one
Messages
3,517
Name
Chris
Edit My Images
Yes
I've never actually shot a person before intentionally, so I'm interested to know how I did! The original has a slightly dubious colour cast as a result of bouncing flash of a bright green wall, so I did a bit of processing on it. I'm interested to hear anyone's thoughts, tips, advice etc!



Chris
 
Last edited:
I like it, particularly the lighting. Although if your after comments, have you done anything to the catchlight in his eye? It seems a tad large, or too bright.If it were muted a bit, it might not stand out as much.
Just my humble opinion...
 
lukewoodford said:
To be honest I can't fault it, I think its a really good portrait.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot! I really like a lot of your people photos, so I'm really chuffed with that!


fontmoss said:
yup, very nice particularly for a first attempt
Click to expand...

scottishmonkey said:
Loks great to me (y)
Click to expand...

Thanks a bunch guys, always nice to hear good words, especially when I'm new at this sort of thing!


whatdoesthisbutt said:
I like it, particularly the lighting. Although if your after comments, have you done anything to the catchlight in his eye? It seems a tad large, or too bright.If it were muted a bit, it might not stand out as much.
Just my humble opinion...
Click to expand...

Yep, definitely after comments or I'll never improve! Erm....'catchlight'...? Is that the technical term for the reflection? I haven't done anything to it, apart from the black and white conversion, and playing with brightness and contrast. Should it not be there? I don't know anything about the technicalities of portraits really, should it not be there? Is it a good thing, or a bad thing? Well I'm assuming bad, but it is a common thing? Sorry for all the questions, animal and landscapes are my usual thing!

Chris
 
^^^ im with them^^^
 
melevo said:
^^^ im with them^^^
Click to expand...

Thank you!

So I've done a bit of research, and it seems in some photos, a 'catchlight' is a good thing, and in others it's a bad thing.....right? Could someone tell me what exactly makes it one or the other? Sorry for the fairly dense question! :help:

Chris
 
So, I've decided that the catchlight can be a good thing, but only if it's subtle. So here's attempt number 2!



Is this better, worse, or about the same?!

Chris
 
Put your collar down old fruit, there's a good chap :D
I think that'd make a good B&W conversion. Better than the first as you can still see a bit of detail on the shaded side of your face. The first one was a bit "one sided" for me :)
 
ROFL2K9 said:
Put your collar down old fruit, there's a good chap :D
I think that'd make a good B&W conversion. Better than the first as you can still see a bit of detail on the shaded side of your face. The first one was a bit "one sided" for me :)
Click to expand...

Well I didn't like any of the collar-down attempts! They looked a bit dull and too businessman-like for my tastes! I did try it as a B&W, but I think I preferred the colour one. And it was good practice as well, I want to get better at colour, and B&W portraits!


david1701 said:
also the eyes look a bit oversharpened to me

very nicely done for a first go though
Click to expand...

What in particular makes it look that way? There was no sharpening whatsoever done to the first image, but a fair bit on the second...what gave it away?

Chris
 
the blood vessel near his nose and they just look noisy,

though I would have said hte first was fairly sharpened - maybe its in camera sharpening?
 
I think these are both excellent portraits, and wouldn't have not known they were first attempts had you not said...

With the first shot the only thing I wasn't sure about was dark shape on the left hand side with what I think is light from behind the curtain, you may want to consider burning it out so that is doesn't distract away from the main subject.

With regards the catch lights, I believe the rule is that it is better to have only one, as we only have one sun, so you may want to remove the smaller light on the pupil.

I'm not seeing the noise in the second shot david refers to but the pink skin pigmentation on the nose and cheeks could be reduced a little I guess.

Hope this helps, Lee (y)
 
good ... I like it well shotbut why is he blushing...young blokes dont blush:LOL:
 
david1701 said:
though I would have said hte first was fairly sharpened - maybe its in camera sharpening?
Click to expand...

It could well be, I'm still not confident enough, and don't have the disk space to shoot in RAW, even though I know I should!


lee said:
I think these are both excellent portraits, and wouldn't have not known they were first attempts had you not said...

With the first shot the only thing I wasn't sure about was dark shape on the left hand side with what I think is light from behind the curtain, you may want to consider burning it out so that is doesn't distract away from the main subject.

With regards the catch lights, I believe the rule is that it is better to have only one, as we only have one sun, so you may want to remove the smaller light on the pupil.

I'm not seeing the noise in the second shot david refers to but the pink skin pigmentation on the nose and cheeks could be reduced a little I guess.

Hope this helps, Lee (y)
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for the compliment! I did try some more photoshopping on the background, but when I got rid of that shape it made the background too dark, and plain, and I didn't like it. But it's something I'll have a think about. And thanks a lot for explaining about the catchlight thing, the smaller reflection should be really easy to get rid of now I know that there should only be 1!

I hadn't noticed the pinkness to be honest, maybe my monitor needs a calibrate!


Tomas Whitehouse said:
Yep, very nice shot, lovely and sharp with superb tone (y)
Click to expand...

Awesome, thank you very much!


Dangermouse1964 said:
good ... I like it well shotbut why is he blushing...young blokes dont blush:LOL:
Click to expand...

Thank you very much! As I said, I can't see much of a blush happening, but it may be that my monitor is out! Might have to look into that, I don't want to be taking pictures of people only to find they all look embarrassed!

And the 'he' in question is actually 'me', they're self portraits. I probably should have said earlier, but having read through other self-portrait threads they seem to be judged differently to normal portraits! It's given me loads to think about when taking photos of people, it really has, so thanks so much to everyone who contributed to this thread!

Chris
 
Chris,

The monitor I'm looking at these on is calibrated, and the pink I referred to doesn't seem to bright to me, but it is noticeable. And as for being self portraits, that just makes these even more impressive, I've never tried it but going from what others have said and the results I have seen you have nailed these (y)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top