Make a wish!

[cstewart1977]

Inspired by CT Pham, who was inspired by Oleg Igorin.

I wanted to have a narrow DOF for this shot, but that didn't work out because of the f-stop I wanted to use. Can't have everything now can we. This shot has minimal processing. I bumped the saturation a little, did a little sharpening around the edges, and cloned a little glitter on the left side for balance.

The second shot was converted from RAW to JPG, that's it. No cloning, no adjustments were made whatsoever. It's not perfect, but I'm still pretty darn happy with the result. Please tear these images apart, nit picks, personal opinions, and all.

Thank you!

Strobist info:
1/200 sec at f / 9.0, ISO 100 at 105mm
Grided beauty dish above subject
Softbox below subject
Gridded speedlight side lighting glitter
Gridded strobe on background, with a blue gel

[Kirk]

I like all of photographic elements of both images. The colors and lighting seem to be perfect for the subject matter.

I do suggest smoothing out the circles under the model's eyes, though. They stand out pretty strongly.

Other than that, my only problem is the emotion the model's face is projecting. She's obviously not smiling, or having fun with the glitter, or in a whimsical mood. In both images, she has a pretty disengaged look. She's pretty, and smiling a little or widening her eyes a bit would do wonders for her.

Indirectly, I guess, that could be a critique of your direction of the model, but really, I think the images are great. The model just didn't quite capture the moment.

[tukaniray]

Very interesting glitter shot.

I agree with Kirk, your model doesn't sell it for me either. But your lighting and technique is nice.

-Ray-

[danchez]

I really like that first image, but maybe try a different crop.

What ya think?

[bryanlindsey]

I dig the first one a lot.

[isam250]

can u share a pic of ur beauty dish with grid? whats the difference with grid and no grid?

[cstewart1977]

Thanks for all of your feedback guys. I'm trying to not being overly defensive; I just wanted to explain how the shot came about.

@Kirk and Raymond: Everyone really had a blast on this shoot, but she was directed to give that expression. She was concentrating on blowing glitter at exactly the right place to give symmetrical scatter, minimizing facial muscle tension, and connecting with the camera. There we some aspects of her smile that just weren't doing it for me. I have lots of shots of her smiling, but they didn't make the cut.

@Dan: Thanks for trying a different crop, but I really like the way the original was composed. In addition to the glitter scatter, that exact placement of the blue light bubble, coming from below are important elements to this shot IMO.

@Sam: I'm using a white 22" Paul C Buff dish. The grid controls light spill for me. My master bedroom is tiny, without the grid, light would just bounce all over the place and contaminate everything:P FYI, I did not use the diffusion sock for this shot. The specular light was a look I wanted, though I think I should have choked back on the reflector panel a little.

[digidawg87]

I'd love to see a little more color in her eye's.

[mchong75]

#1 looks great. I remembering seeing Pham's work before....compared to his, I think you did a great job on the lighting.

[texxter]

Nice idea and good execution, especially the lighting. The image conveys a winter feel that I enjoy. My only nitpick is that the edge of bottom eyelids seem to be too bright? Perhaps a side-effect of enhancing the eye whites?

[boostedsilvafox]

good lighting and number 1 is my fav

[cstewart1977]

@Paco Thanks! It's way too hot to shoot outside, so I figured I'd feel better by making winter in my studio:P She was actually wearing shorts for this shoot hahaha! I think her bottom eye lid got a hot spot from the dish above her head. I checked the SOOC original and it looks the same.

Here is the one of the images I ended up doing any real touching up on last night.