First proper portraits

[spaz]

Please let me know what you think, critiques and how to improve on them would be greatly appreciated.

They were taken for a hairdresser who wanted to showcase some of her work but not only have tight, face-only shots. All taken with the 70-200 2.8 VR, large window with 2 600WS flashes bounced off the roof and wall in a large white room.

[Alpha_7]

All very nice shots mate, I'm not sure the facial expressions on the last do the rest of the shot justice, but overall looks like a good presentation for your clients. (The shots on my CRT, look slightly under exposed but only ever so slightly).

[PiroStitch]

The white balance is a tad warm. The concepts are certainly there.

With #2, if you have a shot without her left shoulder chopped off it would be grand

Hope the hair dresser loves these photos.

[wendellt]

the really good thing is that you have paid attention to the background

image 1 is your best subject and background fit together and the lighting excellent

i feel though the last one the model is too close to the right side of the frame

[spaz]

Thanks for the quick replies

Piro, I'll have a go at correcting this. I'm not surprised it's off; I'm colour blind so until I started with photography never really paid attention to the colours of things as I knew I wasn't seeing everything.

Wendell, what criteria do you consider when deciding how the subject fits in with the background? Does it come down to "feel" somewhat, similar to composition?

For a while now I have only shot with a 50mm prime (not portraits) and I think it's helped my composition greatly. However, as pointed out with the shoulder, I've come to accept having less important elements out of frame.

[sky]

I like the first and second shots, but agree with comments about haughty expresson for the third shot.
I'm guessing they were taken to showcase the salon's work for the national cut and colouring competitions?
I've always taken a keen interest in the pics used for these comps, as the shots of the finalists are often collated for the L'Oreal cut and colour comp finalists magazine, which the hairdressers stock and use as examples for customers to base their next style on.
Yours are as good as quality as I have seen submitted by other national hair salons, so I think you should be happy with them.
Did the client like them? Have done photos of hair models for a hairdresser before, and they are often tricky customers..!

[wendellt]

hi spaz

the criteria for background is gues is context and complimentary visual elements like tone and texture

but in your first example she has a nightie on so the bedroom scene fits
what also is great is the shapes and texture in the background are complimentary to her clothes and her wavy long hair she has so all in all the background in the first really compliments your subject

the others however have a more abstract background so considerign that tone colour and mood is more important than context

[spaz]

Sky, it's interesting that you described it as haughty. I had no idea what that meant but after looking it up, it's what I was trying to achieve. It was just the feel that I got from the lady and her overall look so tried to capture it.

The shots weren't actually for competition, she wanted to showcase how she could use the colour products of a particular company. She was very happy with my work but disappointed in the way she had prepared the models.

Thanks Wendell, I understand what you mean.