Could I have done any better?

alaios · December 10, 2014

Hi all,
The last time I was in Washington DC for a conference we went out early for some shooting. My colleague was trying to persuade me that I get better photos since my camera is better (at that time I had the introductory nex model from sony).

After some time I grabbed his middle class aps-c cannon camera.. switched to manual mode and ask him to pose for me.

These are the three portraits I got from him with a camera I was using the first time (no flash, just natural light). Could I have done somehow better given the circumstances? The last one since I was using the sun to backlight him and I had that flare I found better to convert to black and white.

What do you think?

Regards
Alex

D3Sshooter · December 10, 2014

I prefer the B&W one. The color versions make the skin very red or at least on my screen it looks like that.

Foques · December 10, 2014

there is always, always room for improvement.

alaios · December 11, 2014

D3Sshooter wrote: »

I prefer the B&W one. The color versions make the skin very red or at least on my screen it looks like that.

The question here to the Profs is if I should reduce the rediness. This was direct mornihg reddish line hitting my subject. I have a calibrated monitor but it only support 78% of the RGB so it can be also that I have a problem with the reds. I am giving again the first two shots by editing the white balanced and having it slightly less of what it was shot (The first I gave at the beginning were processed with auto white balance so something went wrong with canon's metering I would guess)

Regards
Alex

Qarik · December 16, 2014

1st of all, for these close up shots..you need eye contact with camera. Without that you lose connection with audience. In general if you have to have some context for subject to be looking away..in this case you don't have that. So while the flare and backlight are kinda nice..you missed because subject was not looking at camera. Btween the the 2 color shots..just take step back and look at them..the shot with eye contact connects much better. The red is an issue. Also it is slightly soft..the eyes need to be in complete focus (this maybe limitation of your equipment though). Lastly I think you could up the exposure a good 1/2 to 3/4 stop.

alaios · December 18, 2014

Thanks for bringing this up front... I think I have seen also close ups with the face looking somewhere away... Since I do not want to break on the business ethics and pick a photo of a professional (I start looking more on the professional works) ... I just used images.google.com and as keywords "Obama headshot"

http://www.geekwire.com/2014/watch-president-obama-discuss-new-immigration-plan-protects-millions-deportation/
where you can see him not having eye contact but looking far away... We agree though, that as I have just found based on your feedback, that most of his headshots have eye contanct (so thanks for helping me find that out)

What is the temperature of the red you see? These were shot on direct early morning sunlight and I think this rediness is part of the story unless it does not look tomato red.

Thanks a lot for the feedback.. This is my only way to improve.. and I promise I have more stuff to discuss about.

Regards
Alex

Could I have done any better?

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