Two weeks ago, I attended the Betterphoto.com Summit in Chicago. Part of the two day event (which I highly recommend) included an opportunity to have 10-15 of my photographs critiqued by a professional. I decided to get feedback on what I consider to be my weakest photographic skill - people shots.
I sat down with photographer John Siskin for about 20 minutes as he walked through the images I created from my one and only photo shoot of a live person (see 40 Minutes in an Alley). His feedback and my reworked images are below.
Original Image:
His feedback on this image:
- crop in from the left border; too much space on the left is almost always a bad thing; western culture reads left to right, so try to avoid any dead space on the left side of an image; even better, place the subject there; like the gradation of light on the face, has nice form, especially easy to see this in ear area,but nice overall (this was a fortuitous result of reflected light coming up from the alleyway pavement)
Revised Version:
Original Image:
His feedback on this image:
- again too much dead space on left; crop in and then separate him from the background by darkening it and possibly desaturating it
Revised Version:
Original Image:
His feedback on this image:
- Graffiti which was distracting in some of the other shots from this day is OK here because the interest is on the left first; crop off the fence on the right - distracting; lighten up shadow on left wall
Revised Version:
Original Image:
His feedback on this image:
- like what you are doing with creative posing/thought process; this one might be stronger with a creative crop losing part of the face and tighter from the bottom
Revised Version:
Original Image:
His feedback on this image:
- would like to have seen more separation between him and the background - giving us 3 levels (hands/face/wall); also symmetrical shots are stronger when you crop them tighter; dead eyes (no catch-light) work here when they normally wouldn't; a grab might have been a better hand gesture than framing like this; graffiti is distracting in this image even though it echoes the tattoos, it's not helping here
Revised Version:
I'm not sure I did a great job revising the images per his advice, but it is helpful to understand how someone who does this for a living looks at these types of images. John teaches a few classes over at betterphoto.com that might be worth my while when I get some time. I also just came across a youtube video of him doing a studio lighting demo for anyone who might be interested in that sort of thing.
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