I finally convinced my wife to model for me for this challenge... my first attempt at taking a "formal" portrait shot ever. She has previously been featured in two of my challenge entries (Arrival in "A Night on the Town" and Away From It All in "At Rest"), but never as prominently as this. I don't take enough "people pictures", so I was really looking forward to being able to enter this challenge for some practice. (Jen, in case you ever read this: thanks for modeling for me hunny! You certainly made it hard to choose which shot to submit!)
Shot in raw mode. Bumped up saturation and contrast and made a very small crop off the bottom of the shot before converting to TIFF. Then just some minor "healing brush" touch-ups in Photoshop; resize; a touch of Auto F/X's free Dreamy Photo plug-in; save for web.
Shot hand-held with the Canon 50mm/1.4 (my third successive challenge entry with this lens.)
Lighting is courtesy of natural light coming in through the basement window, with some fill via a 550EX shot into a Photek umbrella and a 420EX positioned behind her.
P.S. This is her natural hair color (except for the blonde highlights, of course)
My alternate entry:
Statistics
Place: 14 out of 135 Avg (all users): 6.5321 Avg (commenters): 7.3600 Avg (participants): 6.3500 Avg (non-participants): 6.6864 Views since voting: 2820 Votes: 218 Comments: 30 Favorites: 0
Great photo, Ed. You have a very pretty wife and you did a good job showing us that. (P.S. she's gonna kill you if she reads your comment about the healing brush ;P )
Very very good... I hope to be able to get shots this good when I start portrait photography :-) I really like her pose, the backlighting against her hair and the composition.
Just perfect, nice soft light on the face, great expression, make-up, pose, and to finish it all the light from behind the emphasise the great hair color. 10
Good job for giving to someone special to put on their desk. Excellent head shot. This is the kind of stuff that agencies look for for models. Very nice hair highlites and excellent catch lights in her eyes
It's easy to over do the catch light and you are on the right track. One of the features that make a wall hung portrait, is the depth "in" character. Keep on this track for sure.
WOW. Great tones and lighting; the backlighting adds to the attractiveness of the shot. Gorgeous model with beautiful eyes helps too (I'm in love). If this doesn't get a ribbon I'm gonna be disappointed.
Technically a fine portrait with efective lighting, framing and colour. but it lacks emotion - I sense little of the character of this person and in this sense it lacks an essential quality of portraiture.
Having a beautiful woman to photograph certainly helps your odds : ) You did a splendid job on top of it! The highlights in her red her are really attractive. Nice job.
This is a lovely portrait - like the style, the black background, the highlighted hair (great colour), the skin tones. I would love to see some more shots from the shoot - perhaps some less symmetrical and perhaps more relaxed? My subject had and has very limited patience and getting her to relax was not one of my strong points!
I like the highlights on the hair. I would have liked more lighting to somehow bring out the eyes. I don't care for shots of ladies with their head resting on a closed fist.
my favorite so far...nice pose and nice coloring...the black background brings out her hair & eyes nicely...she looks very comfortable and at ease posing...good job
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
