A few from this weekends photoshoot

With this new level of honest critique I feel nervous posting these

Anyway I had a 5 hour session at the weekend with an 'very' extended family of 10 + dog) trying to cover almost every portrait option possible.

Over 200 photos, several hours of PP'ing, a lot of coffee and a few doses of ibruprofen later I have delivered their images and they all seemed to be very happy.

I thought I would share a few of my favourites here for your enjoyment and (yes I do mean it) critique. Please remember I am still planning to go professional in the near future so all comments are welcome. regardless of your experience you are all potential customers.

All taken with the K3 and DA 18-135. All on ISO 100, mainly f8 and 1/125 using elinchrom studio lights.

All PP done in LR5 mainly slight exposure tweaks, lightening shadows here and there, softening a bit, B&W where I felt it was apt and cropping.

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Well firstly of course, if the clients are happy, it doesn't matter a damn what any of us think

However, since you ask, I like all the colour ones, and dislike all the B&W ones.

Amazingly, for the same reason in each case - the B&W ones all seem a bit vacuous/gormless to me, whereas the colour ones all have alert expressions, and I can really engage with them all.

Kissy-kissy is very difficult to get natural, and I don't think you've achieved it with the one of the kid in the middle (which also looks quite goofy to me).

However, as I say, I think the colour ones are good. Obviously, but still nicely posed, and engaging expressions with no huge imbalances (except the baby in the big group, but it's small and not too distracting).

I'd desaturate the guy's cheeks in #7, though, he looks a bit like he's been overdoing the beers in recent years.

Technically nothing bad to comment on, what I would suggest however is if you shoot portraits professionally I can't stress enough you advise clients to wear plain single coloured shirts, tops, blouses. Striped and patterned tops are just so distracting and messy looking.

Image 7 has the lady laying down looking straight down her top, remember clients will most likely be hanging these portraits on their walls.

I think if you get the posing and clothing right you will be fine

I noticed this, but there's nothing improper on show. Is this really thought of as a no-no in the pro-portraiture world?

I like the final group best, that works well.

The black and white shots seem quite dark toned and lifeless, so a bit more contrast or livelier lighting would help.

If you are going to sell prints people won't buy prints like this, men can be fickle about wives on show etc as can women, it's purely commercial reasons.

I cannot shoot portraits worth a damn so I'm not going to comment apart from to say they are better than I could manage in a month of Sundays. I really like the dog but I'd crop the empty space off the top. Something like a 5x4 crop.

K.

As Kris says, much better than I could do but, if you don't mind my saying: a bit lacklustre.
I took the liberty of checking the light levels in one shot and though it rather dull. What do you think?

I think the customers will be happy. I would suggest though that using something between orange and red in the filter spectrum when making mono pics tends to be kinder to skin imperfections and improves contrast, in my view.

Well done.

Ralph, well done, I think its getting off to a good start, and you're well on your way towards your goal ... I hope there will be a discount code for us on PU who might need your services one day!

All good advice from the people above on poses, clothing etc ... was that the first thing you noticed about number 7 there Gary?

On the technical side, just a couple of ideas from me ... I do think you could even out the shadows a bit, I mean pull them up a little towards a more 'high-key' toning overall - I just find there are patches of dark, little 'holes' here and there where the light hasn't penetrated which are distracting.

And I don't think anyone would mind the spot healing brush on the odd pimple / spot here and there.

That's good advice. The last time I was unwise enough to take any portraits, the Lightness channel was brilliant for skin tones.

By way of a friendly dig at ChrisA... but didn't you suggest in a previous post that "clique" was a word associated with negative connotations? With this in mind I would like you to dig out the thesaurus and in your next critique improve on the words "gormless" and "goofy" lol

Yes, you're right, I think. I should have chosen my words slightly more carefully.

Looking at them again, it's only the child in 6 that strikes me that way.

I still don't like the B&W ones, because the (presumably intended) effects don't seem to have come off. In 1, I'm guessing it's supposed to be a tender loving moment, but actually it looks like she's been up in the night a few too many times and has nodded off on the sofa....

.. and 3 is just too flat for my liking. The lack of eyes removes interest, and there's very little contrast.

I expect the parents love it, but #6 I really can't stand. I stand by gormless-looking there. And cheesy.... < shudder >

I'm no expert on the technical aspects of portraiture, so I'll just go with my gut feeling.

My favourite (by far) is the last one, the group shot. It's very relaxed, but just slightly formal if you know what I mean, and the effect is very nice.

I'm really sorry Ralph but I can't get excited about any of the other ones. I think it may be the processing rather than the images themselves, they all just look 'flat' to me. Andrew may have hit the nail on the head when he posted one that has had the levels lifted, I think it would make a tremendous difference to the vitality of these images to get the levels right in all of them.

Hope this is not too harsh, but you did mention at the beginning of the thread about the new levels of honest critique!

Regards
David

I think you are correct.

I know it's good to have a catch light in the eye. Is two over kill?