I'm not a fan of this lighting to be honest. The picture looks 'flat'. And the girl is almost grey-ish here and there.
I don't mind postprocessing and stylising (at all) nor am I a good photographer so I do not mean this in a bad way but this is not an image that appeals to me much, if I may be honest. (Sorry!!!!).
Originally Posted by Madison
To balance Madison's point of view (and with respect intended), I'll mention that I forgot to say earlier that I actually thought the picture had a nice sense of depth due to the strip of in focus grass (with blurred background and foreground). I quite like the effect.
We all see things differently, it seems. They say that's a good thing. []
In regard to Madison's comments, I welcome the criticism (even though this wasn't posted in the "Image Critique" section). When I read the post, I thought Madison was referring to the lighting being flat (almost likethe light you'd get from an on-camera flash).But I wasn't sure. Maybe your interpretation is of the statement is more correct, Jon...My choice of a relatively thin depth of field was motivated by the technical challenge it presents as well as my own creativity. With abundant daylight, it's very difficult to use off-camera flash with wide apertures as you quickly reach your max flash sync speed. The CPL acted like an ND filter blocking some light hitting the sensor, and the use of the 70-200mm lens magnified the ability to blur the foreground and background (even though I used it much closer to 70mm than 200mm). However,using a telephoto lensdoes tend to compress the scene a bit. Maybe that's what Madison means by "flat."
As far as the girl being grey-ish, again, I honestly don't know. I am colorblind. I am quite limited in my color balancing because of it. The flash itself is balanced to daylight (roughly), so there shouldn't be too much of a (colorcast) difference there. However, as I said, I personally didn't like the picture balanced to 5500 Kelvin so I opted for a cooler white balance. I liked it muted rather than vivid. The way it looks to me is quite different than it looks to most people, I'm sure. It wouldn't be the first time I've missed the mark, but I generally get in the ballpark. At least one person on flickr commented on how he wished for more saturation and contrast in the scene..but others disagreed. It might just be a matter of personal taste...or it mightbe that Ireally do need to use a gray card on every shoot! :-)
I should have elaborated more. Yes I meant in terms of lighting. Depth of field is also very narrow but it is an artistic choice. Not one I am particularly fond of in this image either but it does all come down to taste, not to excellence. There is no 'truth' in my remarks.
I apologise for posting critique. I overlooked the fact that it was Show & Tell. Oops.
That said, with lighting this flat and this grey you lose detail, and (local) depth and shadow. The girl's skin on her arms looks unhealthy and she as a subject lacks any good shadows or roundness or 3d-stuff. God it is SO hard explaining this in a language that is not my own. You know what I mean right? It' like you light a woman's breasts one way they look round, light them another way and they look flat. So to speak.
That, in terms with the lack of colour, sucks the life out of this picture for me.
Then again I am not a very good photographer myself so this would be an excellent moment for me to shut up again since I am doing critique when I shoudn't have because of the section of the forum. Once again: my sincerest apologies. I've seen some of your other work and that I did like! []
Ok Madison, just for you...
I can't do anything about the "flat" lighting in the posted pic. Even if I change the color, it's still going to have the same lighting (unless I did some serious dodging and burning). That said, I can plainly see a gradient of light and shadow on her right arm as well as half her face in shadow (but not enough to lose the detail in those shadows). To me, it's off-camera lighting, and directional...so we'll just chalk it up to taste. ;-)
However, I'll put two pictures in this post. One will be a slightly warmer version of the pic above. The other will be another shot from the same series, warmed to the same tone. Maybe you'll like the second one better--but maybe not, as it was lit very much the same way. :-)
[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.21.08/_5F00_MG_5F00_4834_5F00_warm-small.jpg[/img]
[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.21.08/_5F00_MG_5F00_4831_5F00_2_5F00_warm-small.jpg[/img]
Sean, I like the shot. I guess I'm not "seeing" the flatness of lighting. Some people's skin tone are lighter than others (my wife's looks more like Casper the ghost :<.
I took your shot and did a minor curves adjustment in CS4, and it did pretty much what the top photo looks like. I put a bit more contrast in the curve, and it looks a bit warmer once I found the proper midtone, but her skin looks essentially the same.
Honestly, this shot is quite excellent as is.
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