I got the chance to shoot one of my friends who is an upcoming musician. I was thrilled with how her portraits turned out, and would love some comments/critique on any and all of them.
These are quite nice, but they seem to me to be dominated by the glasses. Many times the glasses frames are the sharpest thing in the image, and they are certainly a distinctive enough shape to command attention. I'm left feeling that this would be a good shoot for the optometrist who sold her the frames :-)
What kind of musician is she? Nice portraits, btw. Just wondering how they fit her music, or if her music was a consideration at all in this shoot. Does she play an instrument that could be incorporated? Or were these shots to be independent of her musician-hood? :-)
The glasses don't bother me at all--I really don't like portraits of glass-wearers where they take the glasses off to "look better". And I think you did a good job with the glasses, no distracting reflections, and some of the best shots are the up close ones with the glasses "in your face" :-)
She is a singer and a pianist, I really wanted to do something extreme, like have an old beaten up piano out in the middle of a field, but she was mainly looking for simple portraits to put up on her site and such.
Really nice work on these portraits of your client. They are very flattering to her, providing a nice comfortable and calm feel.
A couple thoughts I had....
If these are for her website, it will seem to the website viewer that these were all taken at the same time (which I am sure they were since she is wearing the same outfit) and this may come across as a bit odd. Most sites I have seen of musicians have some live shots, or a series of shots with different poses and different outfits that all seem to fit the mood the artist is trying to convey. Questions like this may come up - "Has she only taken photos once?" "Is this all she wears?" What instrument does she play? etc.
If you have a chance to shoot with her again, I would really recommend asking her to shoot with a piano, either at some live concert (or simulated concert), or in a small venue that has a nice grand piano.
