2 Portraits from China......1st post on DGrin!

[IanZ28]

Hello all. I'm Ian (a regular at dpreview). I just had a wonderful adventure traveling in China. If any of you have a chance to visit the country I would deffinitely recommend it. The Chinese are going to take over the world someday.......

Critiques or Suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

first - the beauty.
I didnt run any actions on this young's womans face in order to preserve her natural beauty. I did adjust levels and lowered the highlights (on everything but her face). I also blurred out and darkened the people in the background a bit. I wanted to remove them.......but, it proved to difficult.

http://ianz28.smugmug.com/photos/23029815-L.jpg

Now, the ummm..... Elderly woman.
This was taken on the great wall. Again left untouched - to preserve the wrinkles. Only mildly cropped and sharpened.

http://ianz28.smugmug.com/photos/23031086-L.jpg


Believe it or not this old frisky lady tried to rip me off. I gave her around 6 bucks (50 RMB) for a water (which cost a dollar) and she tried to give me back 4 RMB (or around 50 cents).

Ian

p.s. Hello to all you STF'ers out there. I didnt even realize that smugmug had a forum. So far, I'm impressed! Both shots were taken with the sony V3.

[windoze]

Hi Ian,

always glad to see fellow STF member join up here.... I think after all that has happened over there lately, Dgrin should make a support group for them over here......
Love the pics and your treatment seems perfect to me!
Hope to see many more of your posts!


troy ( windoze )

[bfjr]

Welcome :thumb
Very nice 1st post
Show us some more.

[lynnma]

Welcome Ian! :wave

Both very nice in my opinion.. the young womans face is lovely and the old woman is a great portrait :clap

[Yuri Pautov]

Like you portraits, Ian!
The talent of future portraitist is seen through them very distinctly
Nice to meet you here!
Yuri

[IanZ28]

Thank you for the possitive feedback all!

I thought there was definitely room for improvement.......But, I am very happy with the shots. I only took the 1 of each of them (I did blow a few others on the trip - always ask for 2 right?).

Nice to see you here Windoze.

And Yuri - thank you for the wonderful compliment. It means a lot coming from you.

Ian

[wxwax]

Wow, those are excellent! Great lighting, super sharp, wonderful colors, great models. Super nice. Great to have you aboard! :wave

[MuskyDude]

Hello Ian,


Portraits are not in my realm of expertise but I really like how you shot these two, they are both stand-out shots to my eyes. :thumb

Great to see you post here, I think you'll like it. And welcome! :clap :clap


AJ

[johno]

welcome to DG... Great shots. My favorite is number two.

peace.
johno~

[USAIR]

Welcome STF member (me too) glad to see you here
Nice shots can't wait to see more:thumb

Fred

[Angelo]

Hello Ian. Welcome to dGrin and thanks for sharing 2 beautiful portraits.

[Shima]

Nice pictures :)

How do you like your Sony V3? I'm currently debating between that and a Canon G6...

Love that you have a Japan gallery in you photo's, I'm a Japanese major-- been there once so far! :)

[SusanB]

Very well done. :thumb :thumb The contrast in subjects is most enjoyable to view. At first I thought that the older lady may have been intentionally trying to short change you, but then the thought occured to me that maybe she did not know how to charge you for taking her picture- just a possibility.

Susan

[IanZ28]

Nice pictures :)

How do you like your Sony V3? I'm currently debating between that and a Canon G6...

Love that you have a Japan gallery in you photo's, I'm a Japanese major-- been there once so far! :)
Thanks for looking shima.........and I'm glad you liked my Japan Gallerie.

I really like the V3 (but). Its a very capable and has a wide range of control. Where you should really be looking though is at the 717 or 828. Granted they are bigger.......but, the v3 I find just leaves a little to be desired. And the price difference isn't all that big. When I look through the galleries the images are simply much cleaner and sharper.

I really want a dSLR though.

Ian

Hey Susan.....You might be right.....

[GREAPER]

Welcome Ian.

Very nice photos, the young woman is stunning and well captured. As you mentioned, it would have been nice if the other people were not in the background, but I think you did a nice job of dealing with it. The elderly lady is superb as is.

Thanks for sharing them.

Brian

[ian408]

Welcome!

Two very nice portraits. The first is my favorite. Have you tried toning down
the whites and maybe a little bump in the saturation? A tad more sat might
compliment the dress more. But then there's the skin tone that might suffer.

Ian