Remember that the closest thing to the lens will appear largest. He's leaning towards the camera in that shot.
You haven't said where your lens was set (focal Length) but generally speaking 85mm to around 110mm (on a full frame camera) is a good length for portraits. Anything wider tends to emphasize the closer parts of the face.

You have some nice work here. Nothing wrong with a small dish as long as you are willing to accept harsh light. I would offer the following.

Get a reflector - either one specifically made for the job or even just a white board - this will allow you to open up the shadows a little. #3 has almost perfect butterfly lighting but the blocked up shadow on the side of the head detracts from it.

In picture #1 the lighting is good on the face but the hair is blocked out on both sides. The finger across the mouth detracts.

In pictures 2 and 3 the image is tilted - perhaps intentionally? the groves in the background paneling should be straight up and down, or really tilted. Just the slight tilt on the subject would be fine if the background were plain.

Just my two cents

Excellent shot - More partial to the second one.

CaptainC - Thank you for sharing this along with the lighting and venue information. Your professional style is something to aspire to.

Boone - excellent post!

Twindad - regardless of the reason for the problem you showed that you can think on your feet. You changed the settings so your session was saved. This is much preferable to wasting the rest of the available time trying to figure out the problem. You adapted and got your desired results. Now you have the experience under the belt, should this happen again you will know immediately where to look first. Keep shooting - and keep thinking!

Bill

That's certainly true. :roll:

The only way a camera shutter speed should change on a manual setting is if you change it or you have bracketing turned on?

Thanks alycrom, I appreciate your comments - glad you liked it.

I agree. Perhaps if you cropped it just below her knees so the boots don't show at all?

Meteor - meaning 'of the air'. "Shooting Stars" are meteors. Most of them not much bigger than sand grains. The 'Meteorologist' is the weather man.
The study of meteorites is 'Meteoritics'

Meteorite - a meteor that makes it to the ground is a meteorite. (Usually the larger chunks - golf ball size and up)

Far more info available but too far off topic....

selmslie -

Thank you for your C & C. There was little to no PP on this image so the chromatic aberration is most likely the lens coupled with backlighting. One more thing to remember for the next round!

Thanks!

Uuglypher - Thank you for your kind evaluation of this image. Your perceptions are close to my own when I took the photo.

mcveed - Thank you for your comments as well. The lighting was natural. I can agree that the leading edge and the trailing petals are oof, but viewed from a normal distance I discounted this. Your suggestion of determining aperture from intended dof is very helpful - I'll have to do that in the future. I was hoping the highlights on the leaves would break up the background.

Thank You!

Thanks for your reply. I never would have thought of that technique.

This was taken just before 10 AM in late June, No filter.
f/2.8; ISO: 100; 1/4000 with a Nikon D800 and Nikkor 85 MM Prime. I've just started shooting flowers recently - hope you enjoy this one. C & C Welcome

(Download)

Shooting at f/2.2 you have a very limited depth of field, and it appears that only a couple of petals on the flower near the back at the 2:00 position are actually in focus. The rest of the image is either soft or largely out of focus. Perhaps since you are shooting against an uncluttered background you should try this one again with a smaller aperture.

Composition wise - for me the frame is to lopsided, all the weight is in the lower left corner. Tilting the frame dose not help. Cropping off the bottom tiny bit of petals doesn't work well. If you are going to crop then make it look like you meant to do it, not like it's an accident.

Hope this helps...

Bill