A friend of mine asked me to do a headshot for him, and I had neither the equipment nor the experience but I tried it anyway.
[thumb]753707[/thumb]
This is one of the shots I did a (relatively) quick edit on.
I have a SB600 flash (i think?) with a makeshift bounce card and a homemade reflector underneath him.
Any suggestions on what I should do to improve? I told him this was a preliminary shoot b/c I didn't know what I was doing, how can I improve the shot and my edit? I do landscape photography, help me out!!!
A friend of mine asked me to do a headshot for him, and I had neither the equipment nor the experience but I tried it anyway.
[thumb]753707[/thumb]
This is one of the shots I did a (relatively) quick edit on.
I have a SB600 flash (i think?) with a makeshift bounce card and a homemade reflector underneath him.
Any suggestions on what I should do to improve? I told him this was a preliminary shoot b/c I didn't know what I was doing, how can I improve the shot and my edit? I do landscape photography, help me out!!!
Thanks in advance,
Adam
I like it. I think that his skin is too bright though, but a little tweaking with curves can help that out. The way it is right now his skin kind of overpowers his eyes, which are the most important part of a headshot (in my opinion.) As for his expression, it seems that he is looking a little out of the frame and not directly into the lens. This makes the expression a little vacant, so I would look for some other shots that maybe have some stronger eye contact. Great first shot!
Left you a comment and a quick edit. I am far from being an expert on portrait work. So use my input as you please. That sounded a little too whorish!
Hope you like!
Leo
Check out Jordan Matter. He is one of the guys right now in NY. What I like about him is that he specializes in natural light portraits.
Here is the linky
Jordan Matter
I agree with lovethelight, the skin is cranked up a bit given the dark background and the eyes are a bit vacant. This characteristics may be interesting in some cases, but in most cases you'll want a stronger connection between the subject and the viewer. I personally would like a little more shadow to one side or the other, but the straight on light is getting to be quite popular so I wouldn't say it was wrong in anyway.
Now that I've critiqued, let me end with a compliment and say that I do like the image. It's bold, interesting and very well executed for your first headshot.
I think I like natural light a lot better, that is more my bag. I'm gonna go with that next time.
If you are a natural light person, you might try using you light as you would natural light. For example, imagine where you natural light would come from and then position a shoot through umbrella with the shafting pointing in the direction of the natural light you imagined. Then picture the natural light and where it might have bounced off a wall and put a reflector there.
I like the second photo, it has more shadow than the first and that gives it more depth.
