Critique for Ian - Post RPS Workshop Review

These are Ian's pictures taken during the recent RPS workshop with myself, Graham Whistler and Clive Haynes. After every workshop I run attendees can send me images for review once they've had a chance to edit and post-process them.

Here we have two crops and tones of the same image. I really like the black and white image, but the colour one has a really odd colour cast to it.

Looking at the set as a whole I'm not sure if this is a deliberate choice, an incorrect setting of camera colour balance or a mal-adjusted monitor calibration. I suspect it might be the latter as there are other issues with other images that I think you would see on a properly calibrated monitor.

Anyway back to these two images. I like your thinking about the two crops, and the black and white crop is a lot stronger, the removal of the hair on the shoulder and pushing the belly button down to the corner really adds a strength and dynamic to the image. The tones in the mono version are much nicer too.

Colour cast aside this is a lovely gentle figure study. The lighting on the figure is pretty much perfect.

On the main body you've got a good strong light on the left of the image which nicely lights the main figure but also just perfect rims the bust and inside the thighs. On the right of the image the reflected light nicely edges the body and gives perfect separation from the background. The light falling across the torso proper gives lovely shape and form and modelling to the torso and picks out the bust, shoulder and collar bones perfectly. Lastly there is a perfect Rembrandt light on the face.

I have two very small complaints, one's impossible to fix now, but the nose is very close to the far cheek, just a fraction of in inch towards the camera would help it not to break the cheek line. The second is fixable, it could do with just a little more light on the hand on the right hand side of the image.

Lose the red border - it detracts hugely from a very fine picture.

Again the colour worries me, but other than that this is spot on. A spot on composition.

Firstly I presume the colour here is deliberate, looks like a blurred Soft Light layer or similar.

What has happened, by having the light shine across the side of Lou's face it really shows up the skin texture which isn't flattering, could do with smoothing out a little. Then there's the nose piercing. While I have no issue with them in the flesh they do bug me in photos because they are too distracting. I would clone it out.

Lastly I might be tempted to put a fake catch light into the side of the eye.

This black and white conversion it not as nice as the first one. It's a little harsh on the skin and makes the skin look quite rough. In this case I quite like the colour cast - it's sort of sepia but not and produces quite nice pastel tones. Again the lighting is spot on. The face being turned just that little bit further away than the earlier one also looks a lot better.

I wonder if it's possible to bring out just a little more light on the hair, principally to separate it from the background.

Something's gone a bit wrong here. While this is supposed to be a low-key image and hence quite dark, what is lit should be exposed correctly. This whole image looks under-exposed. What this has done is make the skin look very mottled. A low-key image is correctly exposed but has a lot of dark tones in it.

Terrific fun action shot and fits the "fashion" look very well. This image has a partially de-saturated look and I think that is fighting against the colour that could be in the picture. You've got a bright red dress, red hair and red lips. I would have gone for a colour boost personally.

I really like the post and camera angle, though what it has done is made Tefnut look very broad across the hips. A bit of liquefy to compensate for the pose wouldn't go amiss.

Overall I like this set, the nudes in particular really show a very well controlled light and very well seen. Also top marks for exploring the possibilities - you've essentially got the same pose with minor adjustments and milked it to the full and credit to you for doing that.

share:  email    facebook    pinterest    twitter    reddit    reddit img  

---

---