[Stagnant]

The actual shutter speed is 1/100. The light was dim, so I decided not to make the shot brighter than it was in real life. It was shot using a slightly wider angle to maintain the correct perspective and later cropped in post processing. Click on the preview image to check it full size.

I am looking forward to opinions and suggestions.

[Liney]

purely personal opinion so you can take or leave it. The image is nice and clear, and the object is clearly engrossed in the book to hand, but the book on the knee doesn't seem to belong there. I would be tempted to try cropping it to lose that section, just to see how it looks. I don't know if this was staged or just a happenstance sighting, but there is definately a story there which adds to the image. From a processing perspective, I kept getting drawn to the bright white "V" of the top of the open book pages, perhaps toning it down a little would stop the eye fixating on that rather than the reader.

[clackers]

Is the subject known to you, Stagnant?

If so, why not pose her - along with books she enjoys - and get her looking at the camera?

At the moment, she's engaging with the book rather than the viewer, like a candid street photograph.

[Stagnant]

Thanks for the comments !
You can say that the shot is staged. I know this person and she knew that she was about to be photographed. On the other hand, she did not feel like posing, but wanted to have a photo of her with the books. While she was exploring the books she picked (the reason why there is another book on the knees), I took some shots without distracting her. She actually preferred a shot taken at even wider angle.
I could actually try to re-work the shot, to "dim" the "v" of the book, for it not to be so distracting.

[clackers]

Thanks for the comments !
You can say that the shot is staged. I know this person and she knew that she was about to be photographed. On the other hand, she did not feel like posing, but wanted to have a photo of her with the books.

A missed opportunity, IMHO, Stagnant.

If her reasoning was she didn't really know what to do, that's our job as a photographer - operate the camera and direct the subject.

If she wants to be reading a book, set it up so she looks up as if her name is being called, or looking away briefly in reflection, or whatever. There are always multiple possibilities in any environmental portrait.

[smf]

A minor suggestion: Crop down a bit to make the paper behind her slightly less distracting by eliminating the head and shoulders photo on the paper.
In hindsight, it might have been better to step to the left, thereby perhaps making the background more bookish and less distracting.
Best wishes.

[Schraubstock]

Hi

Composition, you can argue until the cows come home. To me it is a shot the way it was and in my opinion there is not much wrong with it. Have the person look down, up, left, right or whatever, there is nothing wrong with the way she looks at the book I think. After all this is presumably why she is in the bookstore in the first place. You can tinker around the edges to improve the composition but in the end I wonder whether it will improve much.

My expertise is colour accuracy and the quickest way to improve pictures (this picture) is to make sure it look right from the colour point of view. The bright V of the book is only offending because the pages look washed out. If this was shot in Raw format it would allow you to reduce the highlights (I use PS and would move the highlight slider to the left) and recover some if not all of the details. You would be amazed how much is recoverable. I have fiddled with it and you can start to see some pages, but this is all that can be done with an 8bit JPG.

I use more and more "Oloneo Photengine" to colour correct images because the colour picker goes down to a single pixel and this way you almost always find a neutral grey to adjust colour casts. See the result below.

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Last edited by Schraubstock; 10-27-2018 at 10:39 PM.

[LeRolls]

Pretty much with Clackers on this one especially since she seems to have a rather cute face. There are lots of opportunities for fun and creative portraits in a library/bookstore. Also the hair is really bothering me but of course I'm used to working with people showing up with hair and make up done a head of time.

[Stagnant]

Here is a slightly re-worked version.



To answer some of the comments :

* This shot is a by-product of a book store / cafe visit. She found some interesting books and the one on the knees was waiting its turn. That's why she is not looking into the camera and it is the reason, why I decided not to crop it further. Of course she was aware that I was doing some shots and she wanted to have some, but she prioritized books, so in a way you can call it a candid shot, thus in my humble opinion, the set of criteria used to judge should be chosen accordingly.
* This was shot in RAW, so In the second version I re-worked the white balance, and adjusted the exposure on the book's "V". DxO PhotoLab allows to apply local adjustments and Smart Lighting tool can now be set to "spot weighted". I set her face as priority area for this tool.

Thank you for the opinions !

[Ccat]

The two reworked pictures really set off the highlights in her hair, especially the first one, that I found distracted me from her face or the book. If she was a model for hair coloring it would work well, but in this case I found it too distracting. Cropping helped the composition of the photo, but I would have cropped the book in her lap, and while I understand the reasoning behind it, I felt the artistic value of the photo suffered.

[clackers]

This shot is a by-product of a book store / cafe visit. She found some interesting books and the one on the knees was waiting its turn. That's why she is not looking into the camera and it is the reason, why I decided not to crop it further. Of course she was aware that I was doing some shots and she wanted to have some, but she prioritized books, so in a way you can call it a candid shot, thus in my humble opinion, the set of criteria used to judge should be chosen accordingly.

Except you had the chance to make it something other than the candid, Stagnant, but that's all it ended up as. Somebody else could have taken that walking past with their phone, you had the opportunity to do better!

As one learning photographer to another, you have the DSLR and lens, you have the responsibility to create the portrait and make the effort worthwhile to you and your subject. If you speak decisively, most people will comply.They trust you, at least for a short amount of time. That window is where you swing into action. If you're shy and she's shy, you've got to step up to the plate and provide the energy for both of you, IMHO. Even getting her to put her hair over the other shoulder could have helped.

[awho_dis]

The actual shutter speed is 1/100. The light was dim, so I decided not to make the shot brighter than it was in real life. It was shot using a slightly wider angle to maintain the correct perspective and later cropped in post processing. Click on the preview image to check it full size.

I am looking forward to opinions and suggestions.

Hi everyone. I'm new to the forum and i will be the first to say I know very little to nothing about photography but like everyone else, I know what I like. I came across this forum last-night while looking for info on how to get the most out of my K70 which I have had for over 1-1/2 yrs. I have been teaching myself very slowly, yeah very slowly; part of my problem is I have other interests.
I saw this shot by Stagnant and it drew me in then i got caught up in the posts, as a result I decided to join in. As earlier stated I do not classify myself as a photographer but I know what I like and can only speak on what I see; after-all, isn't that what photography is all about; capturing what you see in REAL Life at that moment in time. I think the photo reflects exactly what Stagnant saw, an attractive female in her environment at that time, messy hair and all. That it, that's the reality. Now if he was shooting a model shoot, then I would say he did not capture his story; for me he captured it beautifully; I get to see what he saw in that moment in time in real life not what he thought people should see; and there is certainly times for that type of shot but I don't think that is what he want to portray at that time. Matter of fact my interpretation of the shot is that he saw a pretty girl doing her thing and decided to sneak a shot...which you should never do. i like it

[Stagnant]

Hi everyone. I'm new to the forum and i will be the first to say I know very little to nothing about photography but like everyone else, I know what I like. I came across this forum last-night while looking for info on how to get the most out of my K70 which I have had for over 1-1/2 yrs. I have been teaching myself very slowly, yeah very slowly; part of my problem is I have other interests.
I saw this shot by Stagnant and it drew me in then i got caught up in the posts, as a result I decided to join in. As earlier stated I do not classify myself as a photographer but I know what I like and can only speak on what I see; after-all, isn't that what photography is all about; capturing what you see in REAL Life at that moment in time. I think the photo reflects exactly what Stagnant saw, an attractive female in her environment at that time, messy hair and all. That it, that's the reality. Now if he was shooting a model shoot, then I would say he did not capture his story; for me he captured it beautifully; I get to see what he saw in that moment in time in real life not what he thought people should see; and there is certainly times for that type of shot but I don't think that is what he want to portray at that time. Matter of fact my interpretation of the shot is that he saw a pretty girl doing her thing and decided to sneak a shot...which you should never do. i like it

Thank you very much, for your input and welcome to the forum ! You understood the idea behind the shot perfectly ! I captured a piece of a daily life, the way it is : slightly messy hair, no posing, book on the lap, books in the background, etc. Later in December I had a photoshoot, which in contrast to this, was staged and I asked the model to take poses I needed. The model had a specific outfit and a very specific makeup. Here is a link to this thread : A photoshoot in the theatre with K-3 II and various lenses. - PentaxForums.com

[fotomarc]

While I agree with the recommendation to crop a bit off the top, for my personal taste, I find the cropping in the reworked version to be perhaps a bit too tight. Maybe it's because the incomplete rectangle on the paper in the top left seems to draw my eye to it.

Also, I find the somewhat strong color of the wooden furniture in the background distracts me a little from the main subject. That made me think of seeing what it would look like in B&W.

Here's an example of that based on the original version. I just converted it to B&W using The GIMP's Desaturate command, with its Lightness mode. And other than cropping a bit off the top (which changed the aspect ratio), I didn't make any other changes. (Perhaps trimming a bit off the right edge might help balance it a little more.)

I think it works well in B&W (though the subject's face looks a little dark to me in this version).

[clackers]

Matter of fact my interpretation of the shot is that he saw a pretty girl doing her thing and decided to sneak a shot...which you should never do. i like it

See Post 4, Awho_dis ... it's not a candid shot.

They know each other, so having her face in darkness wasn't necessary, she could have done this facing the other way, into the light.