Bin it or Keep it?

[Alex]

Two more from today's shoot. I really like these two photos, but the shadow on the face caused by the tree is too distracting, I think. I used SB800 with LSPJ II (with inverted dome) pointed straight up with flash comp. of -1.0. Obviously this was not enough for the fill effect on her face (position of the flash should have been different). I think next time I will use sb800 on a tripode as remote fill directed at the point were tree meets the face. Is it the way to avoid such a shadow? I will endevour to re-shoot this one in the future. However, do you think these two shots are rubbish or worth worth keeping?






and for the record, I prefer No.2.

Thanks.

Alex

[avkomp]

I dont mind the facial expression on both these.
I feel the strong backlighting doesnt help either of these though.

A darker background may well work wonders for these

steve

[Michael]

B/W conversion, burn the tree, dodge the dark part of that face and see how that goes

[Alex]

B/W conversion, burn the tree, dodge the dark part of that face and see how that goes

Thanks, Michael. Gave this a quick go. It works except for the face texture has a change where I dodged. I might follow it by some cloning (skin grafting ). Don't know if this can be done on the colour version. Might give it a go.

Alex

[PiroStitch]

The tree and background are very distracting for me, especially the tree's shadow. I'm out of ideas as to how to improve or save the pic....

[Simon]

Sorry mate bin 'em

There's too many things competing with each other here and the compostion just doesnt sit with me.

Might have been better to get some more eye contact and reduce your flash some what.

Hope you dont mind the comment but I'd rather be truthful

I reckon:

1. Keep the model - she's very pretty and very photogenic

2. Put the camera down and get a pencil and paper and picture in your mind some poses and some props you see her in, write them down

3. Review the list in a few days then enact the items you still feel good about

[Michael]

I had a quick play in PS and came up with this, not much but perhaps a PP suggestion?

[Alex]

Thank you for your comments, guys. Michael, I still think it looks bad - no offens intended. I will bin and re-shoot.

Cheers
Alex

[Michael]

Good luck with the re shoot

[cameraguy21773]

The B&W version is quite nice as an informal. To improve it significantly you should probably do as suggested and reshoot. This is a lovely girl but tell her to lose the corful eye makeup for your next shoot (please!).

[Alex]

Thanks, guys. I think I will reshot. I like this pose, but ideally I want background with no blown highlights and better fill flash on face. Cameraguy, I agree regarding the make up Michael, thanks, as a matter of exercise I tried to reproduce your b&w, not sure if I succeeded though, but it does look marginally better than the original.