hwilsonphoto wrote:
Geez, you guys... understood - it looks like a composite, the guardrail is distracting, too much white, I shouldn't have shot her on a mountain pass that is closed for the winter, I need to crop it, etc
You stated that you had no idea what you were doing, and it was assumed by most that you were also looking for some response here, You received some very good and useful critiques here. You then acted a little bit like you felt those responses were personal jabs at you. If you don't want to hear such constructive responses then simply don't post a photo.
Your photo is a nice rendition of a pretty girl but there are a number of things that would make this photo even better. For one the image is very flat, you should have attempted to add some structure to the face with added reflective light or possibly a black reflector to draw some light out of the face, thereby giving it more interest and shape.
If you ask yourself what was the main subject in the image, I and most here, would assume you would say the girl. Take a look, percentage wise, at how much of the image is the girl and how much in percentage, is the rest of the image. You will see the majority of the image is of the background. Since you gave that much space to the background, some may think that you felt that was the most important thing, so why include the girl and spoil that photo of the background?
You stated it was a portrait, therefore we shall assume the real subject was, in fact, the girl. Therefore, you should have given her priority of percentage of space in the image, unless of course, you had a good reason not to shoot it that way. The other thing to consider is that when there is too much of everything else in a photo, compared to the main subject, you should attempt to reduce the visibility of all that other stuff. You do that with selective focus and depth of field via aperture choice or lens choice. You would be better off, zooming in more if you had a longer lens to choose from, or to reduce the amount of focus given to the background, or cropped down to reduce what can be seen, and adding more bokeh with the longer lens. That way, the viewer's eye is more drawn to your subject, the girl.
It's fine to include the scene in a portrait, but when doing that you do not want to place the subject dead in the centre of the image. If you wanted to include a lot of a slightly out of focus background, then stick the girl off to one side, preferably the left side looking a little to the right, with her face (as the viewer sees the image) but you can still have her eyes looking at the lens. That way you may also achieve some shadowing to give her face more shape and interest. Again all this is not directed negatively to you or bashing you, it is just a way to teach you more about portraiture. That way, next time, you will not be saying you had no clue what you were doing, but actually did have a clue and that you were practicing and learning.
We all learn, all the time, regardless of the level each of us are in photography. Don't forget that and be pleased that others have taken time out of their day to share their opinions with you. You know, anyone who takes the time to comment on your image, should be taken as a compliment to you, because they thought that much of you and the image, that they wanted to share their thoughts. And that should mean a lot to you, to all of us in fact, whenever anyone takes the time to share their time with us. I hope you understand that.