My latest portraits. Would love for you to see!

I hope everyone has had a fantastic day thus far. Just thought I'd share some of my latest portraits. These images were all taken on the same day.  I hope you guys like them and I'm 100% open to feedback and constructive criticism from anyone! (amateur-professional). Have a nice day!

You're sure going somewhere with these.

I would dare suggest…

• Don't cut legs
• Don't show the roll
• Leave a forced paragraph between shots

Thanks! I appreciate the feedback, but showing the roll was a personal creative choice of mine. I felt like it added more balance to the overall image. I guess it would depend on the context of the image, but as a piece of my personal work I like it there .

Nice set! 

1- the highlights are a bit too much
2- the legs are cropped
3- I think is the most successful. Nice lighting and good colors, but then the legs are cropped.
4- highlights are also a bit blown
5- Good shot with nice lighting, but the crop is a bit too tight. 

Steve Rodriguez wrote: Nice set! 

1- the highlights are a bit too much
2- the legs are cropped
3- I think is the most successful. Nice lighting and good colors, but then the legs are cropped.
4- highlights are also a bit blown
5- Good shot with nice lighting, but the crop is a bit too tight. 

I appreciate the feedback. Thanks!

I like the 3rd and the 5th shot. The lighting is really good but the lower crop needs to improve indeed. 

I don't see a significant highlight problem in any of these. The details are all there. Color, focus, detail are all excellent. Very well done.

The cropping, as has been mentioned, goes against convention. A tiny thing to fix.

garyrhook wrote: I don't see a significant highlight problem in any of these. The details are all there. Color, focus, detail are all excellent. Very well done.

The cropping, as has been mentioned, goes against convention. A tiny thing to fix.

Thanks!

Some cropping from Vanity Fair. These are some of the images on my wall where I edit my photos.

Kid Fire X wrote: Some cropping from Vanity Fair.

When magazines are picking in my bank for pictures, they would
be horrified to find "your artistic intent" in terms of cropping.

In their layout, they can do what ever they want but you are wrong
to think it is a signature look. UNLESS the AD is with you in studio
or on location and directs the shooting session.

These are better than I could produce, for sure. Let me just start by saying that. xD Overall, I think you're doing really well! A couple comments...

I have discovered that magazine photographers break a lot of rules. It's not because they are necessarily being creative, but because magazine shots don't need to. Their photos aren't studied, peeped, or meant to be hung on the wall as art (well, not in a traditional sense)

Go back and look at those rag shots again though. Look at the crops of the legs. Typically you want your crops just above a joint, not just below. The magazine shots followed this rule for the most part, but only once it didn't. Cropping off at the ankles or below the knee feels a bit awkward. Same with elbows and wrists. 

Personal artistic touches are a tricky thing. I break some every now and then, but it seems like I really only began successfully breaking rules in my area of photography when I finally felt like I was nailing the basic rules for every photo and learned what works and what really doesn't. To me, the black at the bottom of the photo looks more like a flash sync problem than an artistic touch. It looks unintended because it's cutting off your models in bad places. To me, that is the biggest difference between what works and what doesn't. 

Make sure to calibrate your monitor and/or that it's capable of being calibrated. Your monitor's brightness and RBG can greatly alter how others see your work. My monitor is too bright. I use it for gaming as well as photography, so I have to double check all of my exposures on another device before displaying it anywhere. Eventually I would like to have one that I can customize settings so I just flip a switch and it jumps between photo and gaming settings. Just keep this in mind if you are getting feedback about your exposures and can't seem to figure out what the problem is. (Or, it could be their monitor!). If you're using your histogram, the likelihood of getting the wrong exposure is greatly decreased. 

Hope this helps. Your shots look really good! You're at the point of nailing down those final details for amazing shots. They're so close!

Troponin wrote: These are better than I could produce, for sure. Let me just start by saying that. xD Overall, I think you're doing really well! A couple comments...

I have discovered that magazine photographers break a lot of rules. It's not because they are necessarily being creative, but because magazine shots don't need to. Their photos aren't studied, peeped, or meant to be hung on the wall as art (well, not in a traditional sense)

Go back and look at those rag shots again though. Look at the crops of the legs. Typically you want your crops just above a joint, not just below. The magazine shots followed this rule for the most part, but only once it didn't. Cropping off at the ankles or below the knee feels a bit awkward. Same with elbows and wrists. 

Personal artistic touches are a tricky thing. I break some every now and then, but it seems like I really only began successfully breaking rules in my area of photography when I finally felt like I was nailing the basic rules for every photo and learned what works and what really doesn't. To me, the black at the bottom of the photo looks more like a flash sync problem than an artistic touch. It looks unintended because it's cutting off your models in bad places. To me, that is the biggest difference between what works and what doesn't. 

Make sure to calibrate your monitor and/or that it's capable of being calibrated. Your monitor's brightness and RBG can greatly alter how others see your work. My monitor is too bright. I use it for gaming as well as photography, so I have to double check all of my exposures on another device before displaying it anywhere. Eventually I would like to have one that I can customize settings so I just flip a switch and it jumps between photo and gaming settings. Just keep this in mind if you are getting feedback about your exposures and can't seem to figure out what the problem is. (Or, it could be their monitor!). If you're using your histogram, the likelihood of getting the wrong exposure is greatly decreased. 

Hope this helps. Your shots look really good! You're at the point of nailing down those final details for amazing shots. They're so close!

Thank you for taking the time to write out some feedback. My monitor is indeed calibrated using an X-rite display pro. I appreciate all of the feedback on this forum. It's the only way I can get better.