Striving to Improve

Hi everyone, Newbie here, all ears open for improvement. Critiques and tips openly welcome and appreciated.
Thanks
Don

[Paul_Ferrara]

I hate to be harsh but it would be better if you worked on learning lighting before you worry about taking pictures of naked women. That involves some study. Buy a couple of books on portrait lighting and read and reread them. There's a lot to it.

Paul

[Doug_Lester]

I don't see a problem with the lighting, maybe it's a littl;e flat, but sometimes flat can work. I think it does in this soft, intimat portrait. Personally I like it. The pose is good, the subject is good and so is the composition. My only suggestion would be to remove some the empty space above her head, there's a bit too much of it. Next try, maybe a light with a grid or snoot behind her, on the background, Or a hair light to separate her from the background a bit.

But it's a good job. I expect she's pleased with it!

Thanks Doug she was very pleased with it. As I am an amateur to say the least. I see a steady improvement in every shoot we do. she loves doing them for me.
at this point my goal is to do Portait type photography and this is what Im trying to master first. I am limited on lighting because of expense and am trying to learn the best methods for what I have, then maybe move up to bigger and better things once I have learned about lighting,Focus,Aperture,Shutterspeeds......so I have along way to go. If I didnt do anything WRONG...how can I learn?
thanks again for the Replies!
Don P.S. heres one that got me...why did my white background turn pink?

[RM_Drake]

Hi, Don. Actually, the whole thing looks a bit too pink on my monitor. I think the photo would have more impact if it were cropped tighter. (And a tiny bit of smile wouldn't hurt, either.) I don't know the model's true skin color, so this is just a guess:



Here's what I did:
1. Cropped
2. Image | Adjustment | Curves (Cmd-M). Black point: the shadow in her hair just to the right (our right, not her right) of her face. White point: at the highest value I could find on the background. Midtones: +10 (that is, push 128 up to 138).
3. Image | Adjustment | Hue/Saturation (Cmd-U). Red channel, hue +5, saturation -6. (The red channel hue is where you can adjust the red/yellow balance of the skin. As mentioned above, I don't know her true skin color.)
4. File | Save for Web. Note that the image is always degraded when going from JPG to JPG, but this will give you an idea what you can do from the original file.

Hope this information helps. --Randy

[Gunfitr]

The shot is well exposed, but kind of bland.

I would suggest moving the model at least 6-8 feet from the background, and then try a shot with some more directional light on the model (maybe from the side).

Once you get the hang of shooting photos like the one above, it shows you can make your equipment work. Now make it work for you.

I shot this today with three lights.

Never read a book. Learned a lot here by viewing the shots of others.

Mark