[Ed Aldridge]

Lovely feel to the image, almost looks like a painting

[Ed Aldridge]

Ahhh yeah, another little positional detail I could have dealt with..

Thanks for the comment on the skin texture, I really hate the current fashion for plastic skin, I have done some processing to smooth it out a little but maintaining the texture as well.. Portrait Professional is the worst thing to happen to portrait photography since the selfie stick 😀

[Ed Aldridge]

Not really sure how much difference the ring flash made to be honest, I think it just gives the face a little bit of extra light without totally overpowering the natural light… or something like that 🙂

[Ed Aldridge]

I like the idea of this, I think the flash might have been either too close or set at too high a power level as the hotspot it creates is a little disctracting. Personally I would remove the lens flare, unless there was a specific reason for adding it I think it actually distracts from the image itself and Frank mentioned it doesn’t look like real lens flare.

You could definitely do something interesting with this concept, just need to work on it a bit.

[Ed Aldridge]

the new version is a much better image than the original, it can’t help with the composition issues the others have already mentioned on here but this version definitely has more pop. Not sure what editing software you use but in Lightroom and Photoshop there are things you can do to balance light and dark areas, Lightroom has a graduated filter option, Photoshop has the gradient filter (create a new layer apply the gradient, change the blending mode to soft light then adjust the opacity as required.

Lightroom also has an option where you can fake (ish) HDR but without the plastic look of extreme HDR. If you turn the highlights to -100 and the shadows to +100 it gives a HDR like look, you can adjust it to your preference as well.

Hopefully you’ll get a chance to reshoot this image at some point

[Ed Aldridge]

The flower at the bottom of the image is a bit distracting, it draws attention away from the main focus point. Did you use software to blur the background and foreground or is this the image from the camera?

It would be worth trying this again but maybe clearing the frame a little and using a tripod to guarantee you can get the main focal point of the image as sharp as possible.

[Ed Aldridge]

Thanks Kent, the shadow area is probably as a result of conversion to B&W but to be honest I prefer it as it is.

[Ed Aldridge]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, I’ve posted a cropped version of the Black & White image. @tobiepsg the warm tones were somewhat deliberate but I think my laptop monitor tends to cool things down more than some other monitors so I may have over cooked it a little.. will consider bringing it down a degree or two!

[Ed Aldridge]

<script async src=”//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

[Ed Aldridge]

Thanks John, sorry it’s been such a long time! How have you been?

[Ed Aldridge]

Hey Chris, sorry completely forgot to post any technical details.

I shot this standing on a bench in Regents Park London, I had a cheap Polaroid ring flash and natural light, on her left hand side was a row of trees which provided the shadow, on the right is open space which gave the light, no other equipment required. The really nerdy bits are below:
ISO200
f/3.2
t 1/160
50mm

Not sure if any of that helps or not

[Ed Aldridge]

Thanks Kent, still working on my direction. I am getting better with it but I still make silly mistakes from time to time, with the hands I just didn’t think about it when I was framing, was too busy concentrating on her face.

[Ed Aldridge]

“In your shoes I’d put down the camera and buy her dinner, hoping her brother / uncle / husband doesn’t turn up before you have recced the exits.” 😀 nice idea, not sure my wife would approve though!

[Ed Aldridge]

Edit number two

Original

[Ed Aldridge]

Hey @chrispook if you say you have more kit than talent you must have a whole load of kit, I’ve seem your work and it is really good, especially the images from Afghanistan. I really appreciate the offer but to be honest I travel fairly light, camera, flashes and a tripod on a bad day and that is more than enough 😀

[Ed Aldridge]

That comment was made in the after glow of the experience and of reading about Raymond Cauchetier’s time photographing the French New wave film movement.

Sadly, the best I hope to get is an invite back from some of the students who featured in that series to photograph their sets.

[Ed Aldridge]

@conkerwood I understand and agree, but you should know I didn’t do any skin smoothing, I didn’t edit the beauty mark as some have suggested I do, I did apply some smoothing to the under side of her eyes but it was minimal.

If you want to see portraits from me outside of a studio setting (although to be honest that is most of them as I shoot on location) then have a look at some of the behind the scenes work I’ve done, those are less staged, more emotive.. or at least I hope they are

http://www.deanstreetdesigns.com/photography-the-affair-part-one/
http://www.deanstreetdesigns.com/photography-theatre-production-post-3/

[Ed Aldridge]

@conkerwood the idea was for it to be a magazine style shot so although you may not have meant it I take your comment as a plus.. I disagree that you can’t see any of Cecila’s personality though, I look at the image and see a calm, confident woman with a hint of vulnerability.. I have the benefit of having met her though.

[Ed Aldridge]

@darrencarter to be honest it became a bit of an unpleasant saga, I was asking the producer every so often if the release was happening so I could publish my images, every time I asked it was going to happen next week and never did. All the time he was using images I had taken without attribution, if I’d been paid it wouldn’t have mattered but I did it TFP and for me a cornerstone of TFP is attribution. In the end I am really happy with the shots I took, they are some of my favourites from the whole year and it taught me a valuable lesson.

I thought about doing something similar, following a small band on tour of local pub venues, I’d still like to do it at some point, sadly the band I was going to do split up..

[Ed Aldridge]

This was shot on location on a breezy day which led to some slight flyaways with the hair unfortunately.

Thanks for the comments everyone, what I take from it is that I need to pay a bit more attention to the finer details in post and fine tune the composition while shooting. @darrencarter I get what your saying about the hair but I wanted to get close in on the models face and I couldn’t do that without some hair being cut out, maybe if I get the chance to shoot with her again I’ll ask to put her hair evenly both sides.. live and learn 🙂

If you’re interested you can see the rest of the shoot here
http://www.deanstreetdesigns.com/photography-cecilia/

[Author]

Posts