ART My first engagement shoot.. C&C please :D

[Marix]

First one ever (for two close friends). C&C welcomed. I'm terrible at processing so any tips regarding that would be especially appreciated.

Used Sigma 85 for almost everything
10mm for a few (should be obvious)

Any thoughts, criticisms, processing tips, composition, anything.. say it!

Cheers guys.

1.
Self-criticism, the chain slightly intersecting his head, but the smile was good


2.
Tilt-shift courtesy of tiltshiftmaker.com - yay or nay? I'm unsure...


3.


4.


5.
Should I clone out those leaves in top right, or leave (leaf) them?


6.


7.
Made B&W because the white balance was impossible to get right.
There is also off-camera bare flash to the right


8.
Same situation but different pose
Off-camera flash to the right just to separate her from background a little


9.
Kinda cheesy
Quite a bit of dodging, burning and exposure fiddling with this one.. is it obvious?


10.
That unfortunate light beam on his face has about 2 stops taken off it.. does it look ok now?


11.
More cheese


12.
Anyone know how to retouch skin.. I'm useless


13.


14.


15.
Wide shot is wide


16.
The ring. Lid of box cropped off because it's full of UGLY-ASS writing which I'm not skilled enough to clone out

 

[Marix]

One more.. I don't love the bottom of her shoes but the smiles are good and this was kinda spy shot from while they were just messing about while I was fiddling with my camera

 

[pantheR]

not bad for your first shoot. it needs better PP overall

no on the TS.. not the right candidate to begin with

i like 6

7 looks OOF

13 her eyes are closed

lots of centering of subjects

 

[Marix]

Cool, thanks. Anyone else, more comments?

 

[Marix]

Well spotted eyes closed in 13.. I've got several versions of that shot so I can replace it

I think 7 is focused but it does look soft after uploading for some reason :s

Edit: and yeah PP isn't my strong area really... ill revisit tomorrow with fresh eyes. I know a few are low contrast already

 

[Gvidon]

Not bad for the first time.

 

[Marix]

Thanks, anything more specific?

 

[Marix]

Damn I just checked and she has her eyes closed in all of the replacements for 13

I *did* tell them not to sit directly facing the sun but it was pretty cold and she wanted to sit in the sun for a while

 

[Marix]

Also, if anyone feels particularly generous and fancies giving me some tips/help with PP, I can share full size jpg or even the RAW file to play with

This is just a hobby for me and this was a fun shoot with two friends, so purely for learning/improvement purposes

 

[ov3n]

This is not my area but I agree they look pretty good for your first time. A lot of the poses are like what gets posted here. Only comments I have on color are they look like they should be warmer like you see in the wide shots. Some are too heavy on the green/yellow end.

 

[Marix]

Ok thanks. I did grey card shots in each location but didn't like hoe they looked in lightroom afterwards lol. I'll have to revisit the processing tonight

Thanks for your comment- anyone else?

 

[charles foster kane]

If you PM me in the next half hour I can dedicate some time to skin retouching in 12

What I'll do is an edit using the most simple, time efficient technique I know and then explain the technique to you so that you can gain the understanding required to do the rest of the set if you decide to

We're talking the charlie kane no-surface-blur special, too

 

[Idyfohu]

Have you tried the skin softening brush in LR3? It's pretty easy and effective for basic stuff (I haven't ventured into full blown CS5 retouching cause I'm scared).

#13 & #15 as mentioned, she has a weird face so I'd lose those. There's a lack of pop missing IMO. The pictures just look a bit flat, with the exception of 2. The B&W shots need a bit more contrast IMO...

My favorite shot is #14.

Congrats for the couple and good stuff bruddah.

 

[Marix]

If you PM me in the next half hour I can dedicate some time to skin retouching in 12

What I'll do is an edit using the most simple, time efficient technique I know and then explain the technique to you so that you can gain the understanding required to do the rest of the set if you decide to

We're talking the charlie kane no-surface-blur special, too

Oh shit sorry man, I just checked now (3:30am lol)

Had a hectic day!

Have you tried the skin softening brush in LR3? It's pretty easy and effective for basic stuff (I haven't ventured into full blown CS5 retouching cause I'm scared).

#13 & #15 as mentioned, she has a weird face so I'd lose those. There's a lack of pop missing IMO. The pictures just look a bit flat, with the exception of 2. The B&W shots need a bit more contrast IMO...

My favorite shot is #14.

Congrats for the couple and good stuff bruddah.

Haven't tried the skin softening brush very much, though I've used spot healing to heal obvious pimples etc

I totally agree regarding lack of pop.. looking at Mr pantheR's thread, the colours just burst out from the screen without looking garish. I realise a lot of images are lacking contrast because they are relatively untouched.. I guess I need to get "braver" with my PP rather than just doing basic LR adjustments.

I'll probably end up re-selecting images, based on the things mentioned here.. couple always in the middle, funny expressions, closed eyes etc. And I'll also end up re-PP'ing a lot of them and making contrast/colours more bold.

 

[Marix]

As a personal note I also realised that it's funny how it's easy to critique other peoples work because you can approach it from a totally neutral POV... like "WHY did you do that?!?!"

But it's impossible to critique your own work because you are attached to it.

But after taking a break it's possible to be more critical of your own work. After taking a day off, looking at other peoples stuff and THEN coming back to mine, I realised how "flat" and "dull" they look.

I really like the poses in 3, 6, 11 and 14 and I'm happy with my composition, but there's nothing *special* about them... they need that vibrant, exciting feeling to them that will take them to the next level.

More than anything it's a great learning experience and getting critiques is always SO useful, so seriously there's been a lot of views.. please just say ANYTHING and it will be useful in some way!

 

[Idyfohu]

As a personal note I also realised that it's funny how it's easy to critique other peoples work because you can approach it from a totally neutral POV... like "WHY did you do that?!?!"

But it's impossible to critique your own work because you are attached to it.

But after taking a break it's possible to be more critical of your own work. After taking a day off, looking at other peoples stuff and THEN coming back to mine, I realised how "flat" and "dull" they look.

I really like the poses in 3, 6, 11 and 14 and I'm happy with my composition, but there's nothing *special* about them... they need that vibrant, exciting feeling to them that will take them to the next level.

More than anything it's a great learning experience and getting critiques is always SO useful, so seriously there's been a lot of views.. please just say ANYTHING and it will be useful in some way!

I hear ya...I just went through my catalog and looked at some previous edits and thought, WTH was I thinking? Our non-subjective eyes (and many of them) can see often times what you can't see, which is why we post here right?

If you do re-edit, def repost them and then we'll make you feel bad again. JK...glad you posted them.