I don't do people much, usually they are just pointing at the rocks for scale ;)

An agency I did some work for wants pictures of people taken in association with funded work, so I'm trying to put together my best people pics. (they are doing a sort of contest for incentive).

I like this one, but it was a pretty gray day, and I know it needs some fixing, but does it have potential as a good portrait? Any advice on specifics would be appreciated, please!. ( this guy is actually on the board of directors, so I want to get this one especially right). (this is cropped down, I have room on all sides)

1) original


2) trying to apply what I learned from the advice last week here, I tried to fix the exposure on the guy. I know i need to tone down his right hand, and I think his skin tone is off, red got more saturated on the cloudy day?


3) I thought 2 looked kind of odd with just the guy brightened, like I had some magic flash or something, so I tried brightening the whole scene, but now it just looks overcooked.

I'm not seeing a huge difference in exposure on the last two but rather a change in contrast and hue....
What software are you post processing with?

Originally Posted by reyvee61 I'm not seeing a huge difference in exposure on the last two but rather a change in contrast and hue.... What software are you post processing with?

Gimp- I didn't directly edit the hue, just adjusted the value (integrated RGB) curve. Original is raw (Bibble is my raw converter), so I can go back to the original and increase the exposure.

I see...my daughter uses Gimp and Bibble on her Mac but I'm not well versed though from what I have seen it's not much different than Photoshop.

Originally Posted by reyvee61 I see...my daughter uses Gimp and Bibble on her Mac but I'm not well versed though from what I have seen it's not much different than Photoshop.

Photoshop makes it easier to record actions to repeat, and has more fancy plugins, but for any basic or moderately advanced editing, gimp suffices. I can usually translate any photoshop specific commands into the relevant gimp commands, and all the basic image post processing is relevant to both systems, of course.

hi nothing wrong with the gimp its free and very powerful but not as refined in some aspects as photoshop or pse. looking at the picture the person looks lost and he should be the main part of the picture i would have got in a lot closer to them.

Originally Posted by wave01 hi nothing wrong with the gimp its free and very powerful but not as refined in some aspects as photoshop or pse.

I have no complaints, that was just kind of a tangent here.

Originally Posted by wave01 looking at the picture the person looks lost and he should be the main part of the picture i would have got in a lot closer to them.

Thanks , I don't have a huge excess of pixels to play with, but I can easily crop in more. At the time I couldn't move closer, there was a large gully between us, and I was at 40mm on my 17-40mm lens. I was taking a landscape shot, turned around and he was sitting there taking a flower shot, and I thought I could frame it well with the rocks and the poppies. I can crop out the rock on the left, and crop across the occatillo at the top.

Getting back to the image, I would change the aspect ratio to 3:2 and clip it not far from his right shoulder to bring focus to him and you would still have the two massive boulders in there. In portrait mode vs landscape....

I think you have to decide if you are photographing people or scenery. Yes, you
have a "people" in the image, but why is he there?

You have a guy sitting in the middle of some scenery, and he has a camera in
his hand and he's looking out into space. He isn't connected with the scene.
The camera suggests he's looking for something to photograph, but we don't
see what it is.

If he was photographing the wildflowers, he'd be connected, but he's not
looking at the wildflowers. If he's there as a model, then he needs to be
more interesting. If it's a people picture, then the central point of the image
needs to be him with the rocks just as a background with a tight crop.

The title misleads. He doesn't look lost. Maybe if he was drinking out of
a canteen or looking through binoculars or doing something other than
just holding a camera that doesn't fit with the rest of the image,
you might have something.

If he was looking at the wildflowers, and holding the camera in a way that
looked like he was going to photograph them, with a tight crop to bring in
just the wildflowers and the large boulders, you'd have a photo that tells
a story.

Originally Posted by TonyCooper I think you have to decide if you are photographing people or scenery. Yes, you have a "people" in the image, but why is he there? You have a guy sitting in the middle of some scenery, and he has a camera in his hand and he's looking out into space. He isn't connected with the scene. The camera suggests he's looking for something to photograph, but we don't see what it is. If he was photographing the wildflowers, he'd be connected, but he's not looking at the wildflowers. If he's there as a model, then he needs to be more interesting. If it's a people picture, then the central point of the image needs to be him with the rocks just as a background with a tight crop. The title misleads. He doesn't look lost. Maybe if he was drinking out of a canteen or looking through binoculars or doing something other than just holding a camera that doesn't fit with the rest of the image, you might have something. If he was looking at the wildflowers, and holding the camera in a way that looked like he was going to photograph them, with a tight crop to bring in just the wildflowers and the large boulders, you'd have a photo that tells a story.

that's the crux. I said lost in the title, precisely because it was supposed to be a picture of him, but it ended up being more a landscape picture, and he got rather lost in the scenery. When I turned around, he was leaning back taking a picture of a the pink cactus flower. By the time I brought my camera up and focused, he had already leaned forward. I didn't feel like asking him to pose again, 40mm was as tight as I could go without changing lenses.

I prefer to get things right as much as possible at first, and not force things in post, but maybe I can make something out of this image?

original framing

tighter crop - barely at resolution limit


playing with focus blur (I think is too much post processing)

The vertical crop is my favorite so far. The burst of blue farming the shot at the top and the feel of a sheer drop off at the bottom of the frame adds some dynamism (I think, however, you can crop out some of the bottom and the left side to make your model the more focused subject of the shot). But ultimately it really feels like a shapshot, not a well thought portrait or landscape. You were working with fairly flat lighting in a landscape that needs some real punch, in my opinion, to make the stark setting look exciting.

The tighter crops work better for me, but - then - I usually
shoot people or objects. I'm not much of a landscape person
unless it's an old structure in a landscape setting and then
I crop out most of the setting.

Is it my imagination or is the lens cap on the camera?