Photo from: Basic Studio Lighting Seminar July 2007 participant

This is one photo that is difficult to critique, for it seems perfect for my taste. I like how b/w works on the photo, right amount of shadows on the right place and the model nailing the expression. Great work!

Photo from: Basic Studio Lighting Seminar March 2007 participant

I just love this color scheme, pink and blue. Make-up compliments the whole image, the blue eye shadow nicely contrast with the pink wig and clothes. The model’s expression is just perfect. Now for the bad part, there is too much light coming from the top lighting the wig, since the wig is very light colored it will easily overexpose compared to skin or real hair. This just shows how blind a light (flash) meter can be, it can’t tell what the subject is. If you were shooting with a Digital camera, turning on the blinking highlights should already warn you that the hair is being over exposed, and details of the wig are being washed out.

Photo from: Basic Studio Lighting Seminar December 2006 participant

Who said a portrait has to always be vertical, in this case the horizontal orientation together with the rule of thirds works nicely. A few things that bothered me though, first, since the model is looking to her left, it might have conveyed a better story if she was at the left side of the photo looking at the empty area on the right. Secondly, I have a pet peeve for stray hair, and if I was the one shooting this particular photo I would have most likely called on the hair stylist to do something about the stray hair below the model’s right ear. I know Photoshop can fix this, but I still prefer fixing something I can during the shoot itself. Like the eye bags in this case, adding a fill light from slightly under her face would have lightened it up a bit, maybe to a point that it wouldn’t have been that obvious.

Photo from: Basic Studio Lighting Seminar December 2006 participant

Nice use of ratio (8:1), shadows are still very prominent but still showing enough detail on the models face. I would probably just add another light shining from the back of the model aimed towards the head to add a better seperation bewtween the dark background and the left part of the model’s face. Though one thing to consider this type of harsh side lighting doesn’t work on all models, skin smoothness is a big consideration, because this type of lighting position tends to exagerate texture.