Hi! Thank you for all your comments and critique, I really appreciated it. Here are a new black and white portraits, I want to know what you guys think or any critic or anything. Thank you!
You got many things in the centre field with the first one in
terms of model direction but the devil hides in the details.
The hair on the shoulder is a bit messy, general contrast is
blocking the blacks as the whites are already kissing the me-
tallic recovery. I don't believe the shot needed the selective
colours on the eyes, the lips and the cigarette.
In the second take, the focus is on her shoulder for some rea-
son… was this what you really wanted?
The third is cool, great facial expression but tonally too flat —
read too little directional light.
#1: Just say "no" to selective color. It almost never adds anything to any image. The crop here is awkward because of the space behind her and which way she's facing. Space on the left, or she should be turned to our right.
#2: pretty nice. The light is nice, but I think the focus is on her shoulder? Eyes need light in any event.
#3: I rather like this. but the whites (eyes, teeth) need to be much brighter. Tonal range, and careful use of contrast would help this a lot.
#4. Overall too dark, and I don't care for the light here. It doesn't tell me a story, but I know this guy has one.
I keep hearing that phrase......
one day I will know what this means and how to change it in my own photos.
No time like the present to start learning.
Tone is about luminosity. Forget color. Go read up on Ansel's zone system.
Here's the histogram of image #3:
The histogram shows you that the information in the image falls at the midpoint of luminosity and below. There's a few bright spots, but very few. Mostly this image is gray to black.
That is, almost always, unnecessary. We could using exposure adjustments, slide the data in the image upward, making everything brighter, and also spreading it out. Occupying more of the possible tonal range. Even if we only take the brightest bits and make them whiter, we'd be doing the image a favor. And we'd be adding contrast, which usually adds life to an image, and makes us want to look at it. (The eye is attracted to the brightest thing first, then the most constrasty.) So while this image has quite nice light, it lacks tonality. It comes across as dull.
The histogram gives you information about the range of brightness in your image. Contrast, exposure, shadows/hightlights, whites/blacks allow you to adjust all of that.
Every photographer should learn to see in black and white. Every serious photographer.
So are you saying that histogram is something you adjust on your camera before you take the shot ? Couldn't you take that picture of the woman and change the "tonal range" even now after the shot has been taken, and balance it? Like make it more histogram friendly ?
NewavaMike wrote: So are you saying that histogram is something you adjust on your camera before you take the shot ? Couldn't you take that picture of the woman and change the "tonal range" even now after the shot has been taken, and balance it? Like make it more histogram friendly ?
No, the histogram on the camera helps you capture a properly exposed image. The histogram in your post-processing tool shows you how your manipulations affect the tonal range of the image, and help make decisions on the kinds of adjustments you might want.
On the camera it's reactive. In post it's proactive.
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