Amy Lynn (19 pics)

[CaroleHayes]

I shot Amy Lynn a couple of weeks ago, and just last night, FINALLY finished editing the pics. I'm still figuring out this whole flash thing, but I think I did a decent job with these.

We only shot for an hour, and she only had the one outfit, so I got kind of bored while editing, and tried out a few different actions to change things up a bit. Am I the only one who gets bored if all the pics are edited the same way???

Anyway, here are a few of my favorites (okay, a couple more than a few.... ):


1.


2.


3.


4.
(I know this one is a bit soft, but I was trying to make the water soft....)



5.


6.


7.


8.


9.


10.


11.


12.


13.


14.


15.


16.



17. (I think I need to clone the plant out of this one....)



18.


19. (This one seems more washed out than it was on my hard drive, but I think I like it anyway....)




Anything anyone really likes or doesn't like about any of these?

Thanks for looking! : )

Here's a link to the rest on Smugmug, if anyone is interested.

[paul48503]

Nice job on all of these. #1 and 17 are my favorites. #19 her skirt looks to short the way she is sitting.

[srwatters]

I think these are all nice. You might want to watch for hand positioning. Some are perhaps not the most feminine or pleasing, but that's picking nits.

Quick question, what is the intended purpose of these photographs? Are they for fun or is she 'modeling'? The reason I ask is to maybe save you some time. If she is modeling and these are for her 'portfolio', then editing 19 images has wasted a whole bunch of your time. There is no way she could use more than two or maybe three of these shots for her book, and by the way, neither should you.

If you're working on your editing skills and techniques, then that's great too, but I see too many portfolios filled with one outfit or all shot by one photographer. Diversity rules in my book.

[semperaggie]

my favorites are one and eight but I think the stair rail on the very left/lower part is distracting

[CaroleHayes]

Originally Posted by paul48503

Nice job on all of these. #1 and 17 are my favorites. #19 her skirt looks to short the way she is sitting.

It does look a bit short, huh? I didn't really think anyone would mind.... ;)

Originally Posted by srwatters

I think these are all nice. You might want to watch for hand positioning. Some are perhaps not the most feminine or pleasing, but that's picking nits.

Quick question, what is the intended purpose of these photographs? Are they for fun or is she 'modeling'? The reason I ask is to maybe save you some time. If she is modeling and these are for her 'portfolio', then editing 19 images has wasted a whole bunch of your time. There is no way she could use more than two or maybe three of these shots for her book, and by the way, neither should you.

If you're working on your editing skills and techniques, then that's great too, but I see too many portfolios filled with one outfit or all shot by one photographer. Diversity rules in my book.

Yeah, I definitely need to figure out how to help people with little things like hand positioning WITHOUT stressing them out and making them get all tense and uncomfortable. (Because that's what happens when I try....)

As for the purpose of the shoot/pics, it's a combination, at this point: I definitely am still practicing, so I'm taking a LOT of pictures, and I'm also experimenting with editing, so I'm editing a lot as well.

I DO plan to still take and edit a lot of pics for models (maybe not QUITE this many!), even when I'm done "practicing," FOR the reason you gave: I want to give them a variety of shots that they can rotate in their online portfolios. (I would HOPE never to see all of them in there at once!!)

Originally Posted by semperaggie

my favorites are one and eight but I think the stair rail on the very left/lower part is distracting

I hadn't even really noticed that rail.... Should I clone it out??

Thanks for the comments!

[texxter]

Carole, nice job with this young woman. I like the variety of poses.

I am not too crazy about photoshop actions, I think they are a bit of a common place these days - I prefer a strong image from camera, with postprocessing serving as an enhancer, but otherwise nearly invisible. Some of these actions are too obvious and bring attention to themselves - for example 3, 5, 11, 13. 15. I personally don't think they make an image better.

I like your lines on 17 and would have liked to see a more dynamic pose to go with the tilt, but it's hard to get it all right.

I think 1 is nice, slightly lower camera may work too.

I'd toss 5, 7, 9, 11.

Hope this is helpful.

Thanks for sharing, Carole!

[CaroleHayes]

Originally Posted by texxter

Carole, nice job with this young woman. I like the variety of poses.

I am not too crazy about photoshop actions, I think they are a bit of a common place these days - I prefer a strong image from camera, with postprocessing serving as an enhancer, but otherwise nearly invisible. Some of these actions are too obvious and bring attention to themselves - for example 3, 5, 11, 13. 15. I personally don't think they make an image better.

I like your lines on 17 and would have liked to see a more dynamic pose to go with the tilt, but it's hard to get it all right.

I think 1 is nice, slightly lower camera may work too.

I'd toss 5, 7, 9, 11.

Hope this is helpful.

Thanks for sharing, Carole!

Thanks, Paco! : )

It's interesting, to me, that you don't like actions. I actually really like the look that some of the actions give, and I get bored looking through a big group of photos that are all very similar in feel. A couple of the ones that you said to toss are a couple of my favorites from this group. : )

[srwatters]

Originally Posted by CaroleHayes

I DO plan to still take and edit a lot of pics for models (maybe not QUITE this many!), even when I'm done "practicing," FOR the reason you gave: I want to give them a variety of shots that they can rotate in their online portfolios. (I would HOPE never to see all of them in there at once!!)

I applaud your efforts, but don't be surprised if you NEVER see the fruits of your labor displayed. As you know I've been doing this for about 4 years now and I can show you models that I have worked with who were thrilled with my images and wanted me to edit 10 shots, yet never put one image from the shoot online. And remember that they are always shooting and needing to update their books. That makes the life expectancy of the images maybe a year at absolute best. More likely 6 months. Or sometimes never at all

I'm just trying to save you the frustration of spending hours of your time for pretty much nothing (except the experience, which we've already talked about)... Now if they are paying you per image, go to it. But I think we all know the typical model budget...

[CaroleHayes]

Originally Posted by srwatters

I applaud your efforts, but don't be surprised if you NEVER see the fruits of your labor displayed. As you know I've been doing this for about 4 years now and I can show you models that I have worked with who were thrilled with my images and wanted me to edit 10 shots, yet never put one image from the shoot online. And remember that they are always shooting and needing to update their books. That makes the life expectancy of the images maybe a year at absolute best. More likely 6 months. Or sometimes never at all

I'm just trying to save you the frustration of spending hours of your time for pretty much nothing (except the experience, which we've already talked about)... Now if they are paying you per image, go to it. But I think we all know the typical model budget...

Point taken.

Thanks, Scott! : )

[texxter]

Originally Posted by CaroleHayes

Thanks, Paco! : )

It's interesting, to me, that you don't like actions. I actually really like the look that some of the actions give, and I get bored looking through a big group of photos that are all very similar in feel. A couple of the ones that you said to toss are a couple of my favorites from this group. : )

Carol, it's perfect that we are all different! For me editing is about selecting the very best. If I have a lot of images that kinda look the same, I throw away 90% of them and keep only one or two that really stand out. That's editing for me. It's common to select 3 out of 300, so I don't stand a chance of getting bored postprocessing.

Postprocessing is something I do on a very few images - I don't enjoy working on images for hours, I'd rather be shooting or doing something else. If I get bored this means I didn't do a good job editing.

I don't care for most Photoshop actions for several reasons. First, everybody is using them, which makes me want to run in the opposite direction. My second reason is that it kind dulls creativity - I just paint an action over my images and now it looks like a new image, voila! Some actions may an provide an interesting effect, but most often they just make so-so images like like so-so images with an action applied to them. It's best to have a kickbutt image than a kickbutt action, IMHO. My other reason is that actions, especially monochrome conversions create very different looks, which together, make it difficult for me to see a consistent style and vision - actions kinda place a filter over your unique way of photographing and hide what's unique about you. This can be overcome if you apply the same action consistently to a group of images to create a body of work that is uniquely yours. But going from vivid color to b&w to sepia, to vignettes, to duotone...just confuses me. But that's just me.

My reasons for not liking those. This is constructive feedback.

5 - looking up not very flattering, busy hand/arm pose, branch over hand, expression a bit bland, heavy vignette, oversepia'd. But I may grow to like this image.

7 - large boring negative space at the bottom and to the right, unintended? tilt makes horizontals not so, seems to be either overexposed or overprocessed, lack of separation of the model from the pots

9 - distracting black thingie to frame right, unflattering stiff left arm pose, negative space with pattern and texture, bland grayscale conversaion, top of head intersecting frame.

11 - creative pose? no clear focal point I can discern, can't see the face, can't see the reflection well either, but I can see her fingers.

My opinions only, take them for what they are.

[CaroleHayes]

Thanks for taking the time to explain, Paco! I'll probably keep some of your criticisms in mind when shooting in future. : )

[mom2aidan]

these are looking good. you are definately improving. props to you! keep up the good work!

[CaroleHayes]

Thanks, Teresa!!

Let's see what happens when I take my flash OFF camera. I'm all kinds of nervous....

[ara.bentley]

I'm a woman so I feel like I can say this...

I think a lot of these are creative and looking good! The only thing I would say is that I don't care too much for her outfit. And I am not sure if you had much say in that anyway. I feel like her top is just really unflattering on her and um makes her look like... um ... she's sagging a bit? I know its a bit hard to say something like that but you might ask girls to bring a few different outfits in case one isn't working? She's so young and I find it distracting that she's umm... carrying low...

I find I am drawn to the ones where her front is covered by her arms a bit more. I hope I didn't offend anyone...

[CaroleHayes]

Ara, I kind of agree with you.... I didn't really like her outfit much, even though the color is a good one for her. But she didn't bring anything else, since we were only planning on shooting for an hour, so I couldn't do anything about it. *shrug*