If you have time for a serious critique, I'd really appreciate it!

I had a bit of a dry stretch on real sessions, then this weekend I had two. One was a short session in my backyard doing some head shots for a good friend of mine who is an actress. She really likes my work and wanted to help me learn about head shots so I can get into that market some. The other shoot was an engagement session. This was the first shoot I've really had a real investment in, since they signed a contract with me to do their wedding next July! (Talk about a little bit of pressure...)

Anyway...I'm ok with these shots, but I feel like there is something missing. I'm posting a few of my favorites from each session, and if you have any opinions or serious critiques for any of these shots, I really would appreciate it. I want to take my work to the next level, I just can't quite figure out how to get it there!

(P.S. The headshots are retouched, I feel like it's a little heavy on the retouching, but she loved it. It was my first shot at retouching. But any critique there is welcome too!)

Edited to add: Shots taken with Canon 5D. Head shots all done with 85mm f/1.8, e-session done with the 85mm and 24-105mm f/4.

1.

2.

3.

And a textured candid (first shot at a texture!) I grabbed of her and her boyfriend


E-Session:
1.

2.

3. What the heck? Just saw the settings on this aperture priority...85mm, f/1.8, 1/8000?????? How the heck did that happen... no wonder...

And one just for fun


Thank you all so much!

The headshots do look nice, but a little over "smooth" to me (particularily her skin). The third one seems to have some off lighting...one half of her face you almost lose, the second is much too dark.

As for the engagements, I loved #1 (the composition is great) and #3. The second seemed lacking contrast and pop, and the last two are good, but they seemed to blend into the background. Did you use actions for any of these? If so, I would try and layer mask to help them stand out from the background and the leaves.

Hope this helps!

too much on the retouching... otherwise the headshots look pretty nice. All are nice angles and expressions. to retouch them, I'd first clone out any major blemishes, (like moles or acne) and then duplicate the layer. Do the rest of your retouching on the new layer, and then lower the opacity so that it looks more natural.

Love the texture on the first E-Session shot. Wish she was not making the "uhh" face otherwise I'd really love it. The second one the angle doesn't work so much for me... but then people who shoot with me (or shoot my portrait) know that I'm not a fan of low angles--especially on girls.
The third one is too dark. Nice, but I'd bring his chin down a bit.
Good thought with the leaves, but I'd pull it back a bit so you could get more of the scene...

This is a little one-sided, more on the negative, but I'm trying to give you the bits that could be better--so don't get discouraged... you have a lot of great things going for these shots!
Keep workin it!

Thank you both on the responses!

I agree with you on the headshots! I know the lighting is off in 3 (and I appreciate you mentioning it!). It was one of her favorites though, and I wanted to post it to see if it was "passable."
For the engagements, would you mind explaining how to do the layer mask? I think I understand what you're saying but I'm not quite sure. I think that may be part of what I'm seeing in other people's work that I can't quite acheive in mine. Thanks! I apologize if I sound like an idiot!




Thanks for the alternative method for retouching! I will give that a shot! I'll also go back and see if I can light up the third one a little bit. The leaves were kind of spur of the moment haha. They had been laying on the ground and I was shooting from above. I turned around to check something, and they were up and throwing leaves up in the air haha.
Thank you for the encouragement! I really appreciate your advice, even the negative focus because it does me much more good that just "ooo pretty" haha.

Thank you both so much for taking the time to comment!

The composition and lighting of the headshots is excellent! Even the third one is great ... nice balance of contrast. However, I agree that the retouching is way overdone ... too much!! She is a beautiful young woman and I am sure she doesn't need that. And it doesn't really matter if she likes it, you need to process your images to your liking and your style, which will develop over time the more you shoot and discover your particular imaging preferences. Give clients whay you like and be excited about it, and they'll trust your confidence.

I'm not a fan of textures, and I especially think it is not suited to the image you used it on, but that's just based on my preferences. Nice image though!

You also did well with the e-session. It's decent work and shows the character of the couple, which matters a great deal. They should be very happy.

So I am by no means a seasoned vet. I am still learning a ton of things but here are my thoughts.

As far as the headshots go:

Overall your processing is really heavy in my opinion. Also it looks like you tried to whiten the teeth but I think you might have pushed it to much. When I am cleaning teeth up I just select them and do a hue / saturation mask go to the yellows and drop it about 10-20% generally that is enough. The skin treatment looks like you blurred her entire face and dropped the opacity as others have said I would just take out acne ect. and even out the skin tones I think if you do much more than that you make them look plastic.

As far as the individual pictures here goes... (Thoughts about the post processing are above)

#1: Great light, pose is good, composition is spot on.

#2: My favorite of the headshots. Great colors and pose for her. No negatives that I have to say.

#3: Personally its to blown out on the right side of her face for my taste for a headshot. I feel like the crop is a bit off because its clips her right shoulder off.

#4: I like everything about it besides her expression as someone else has already said. Love the texture overlay and the color toning. Nice composition as well.

#5: Nice composition. I like the fact you have the path coming out of the bottom right corner. Overall nice image doesn't pull me back to it but a solid image for sure.

#6: Good shot. I feel like you could probably up the exposure on it a touch. One thing that brings it down a notch is his expression seems very forced. Might also be able to ease the bags under his eyes a bit in PP *just a touch though*.

#7: My favorite of your E-Session. Love it sharp focus. You have the horizon 1/3rd of the way up rather than dead center which does amazing things for composition. Overall great shot.

#8: Love the left side. The right side doesn't do as much for me. The expressions in the left side photo are great, show a ton of personality. I agree with the previous posters that they could probably use a contrast boost to help seperate them from the background.


Overall you have really nice work and are well on your way. One thing I am working on personally is trying to get very natural expressions from people and in general trying to wait for the really good expression. I feel sometimes if I wait just a second longer now and then I will end up with a much better picture due to the persons expression being a lot more pleasing... its something to think about .

I hope I haven't offended you in anyway just trying to offer help as best as I can . Hope that something I said will be useful to you.

Keep shooting and posting!

Braeden

I don't think you're missing anything! You've already gotten some really good advice here and I definitely agree that the retouching is too much (especially the teeth) but other than that, they're great!!

I personally love the angle up shot (but you do have to be careful not too distort them too much..which you were and it worked great) and I LOVE the textured shot! It looks like they're a hitchhiking couple in the 70's and another car just passed them by and he's saying "It's okay, honey, here comes another one."....is it just me??

You might want to play around w/ your b/w conversion a bit. The walking away looks good but the other looks pretty dark and flat. I usually bump up my curves a bit and increase my blacks...oh, and then use a Totally Rad action called "Oh Snap". It sharpens it right up and adds great contrast!