Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: Riaan van Wyk on July 16, 2013, 02:25:48 pm

Title: Untitled
Post by: Riaan van Wyk on July 16, 2013, 02:25:48 pm

Thoughts please?

Title: Re: Untitled
Post by: William Walker on July 16, 2013, 03:43:06 pm

Hi Riaan

I must say, while I am not against graininess, I don't think it does the lady's face any favours here.

Other than that, I think is is a good portrait.

William

Title: Re: Untitled
Post by: RSL on July 16, 2013, 03:43:33 pm

I like the lighting, Riaan, but this is a face that really needs a left push on the clarity slider.

Title: Re: Untitled
Post by: nemo295 on July 16, 2013, 06:28:37 pm

Quote from: RSL on July 16, 2013, 03:43:33 pm

I like the lighting, Riaan, but this is a face that really needs a left push on the clarity slider.

+1

Far left.

Title: Re: Untitled
Post by: louoates on July 16, 2013, 06:36:44 pm

All the elements of a really good b/w portrait...minus the grain.

Title: Re: Untitled
Post by: AFairley on July 16, 2013, 07:06:45 pm

Nice highlight on the hair below the face!  +1 on smoothing things out.

Title: Re: Untitled
Post by: WalterEG on July 16, 2013, 07:15:03 pm

Riaan,

 I find this a most captivating portrait — the facial expression poses so many questions and all the while there is an air of mischief.  I love it and it harks back to a time of more realistic portraiture as opposed to the sanitised, homogenised predictable glossed up plastic of so much of today's offerings.

I beg to differ with some of the other comments.  I have no issue at all with the gritty grainy starkness of the image.  In the recent past there was such diversity of presentation in portaiture .... particularly editorial portraiture .... which is sadly missing in this era of the soporific perfection of digital capture.  Nigel Parry's work in England before he went west across the Atlantic springs to mind.  And a lot of David Bailey.

The pic has pleased me and rekindled my faith in vision.

W

Title: Re: Untitled
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on July 16, 2013, 07:54:28 pm

I agree that it's a fine and arresting portrait, but I also find the grain distracting. I think it could be improved a lot with some judicious softening, but stopping way short of the "plastic" look.

Title: Re: Untitled
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on July 17, 2013, 03:51:49 am

I agree with Eric. Something short of a fuzzy, soft-focus look is great, but there's just too much grain here and it interferes with my enjoyment of a nicely intimate portrait. I'm sure there's a happy medium.

Jeremy

Title: Re: Untitled
Post by: Riaan van Wyk on July 21, 2013, 01:55:00 pm

Thank you for the comments, appreciated.