[Leica] Three portraits

[dorysrus at mindspring.com (Don Dory)]

Adam,
Please take the following as advice, not criticism.  Take:

http://www.splitsecondfilms.com/2004-August/Family-group.jpg

Starting with the background, you have chosen a position with a much
brighter background that is not uniform, including a tree growing out of
one of your subjects head.  The pose is a little unbalanced with the two
older daughters significantly further away from the parents than the
youngest.  I might have placed the parents front and center, posed an
older daughter on each side in the rear with the youngest daughter
placed in front just off her dad.

Animals are difficult and you are to be commended on having such a
relaxed pose for the animals.  However, it might have been better to
have all of the lighter dog in the image.

The youngest daughter is posed with her weight on the front leg.  She
would have looked better if her weight had been on the back leg like her
older siblings.

Regarding this image:

http://www.splitsecondfilms.com/2004-August/three-smiling.jpg

In PS if you clone out the stray hairs, darken the far left edge where
it goes light, and try to straighten out the smile of the girl on the
right you would have a significantly better image.  In you shots of the
family if you have any with a better smile you might paste that in.  If
this seems farfetched, I have a friend who shot a group of 15 sorority
girls.  He ended up swapping 9 heads around to get a pleasing look on
all the girls which resulted in significant sales to the girls,
boyfriends, and family.

Again, you did a credible job with a group, please take my suggestions
as just that, another way of rethinking posing similar groups in the
future.

Don
dorysrus@mindspring.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+dorysrus=mindspring.com@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+dorysrus=mindspring.com@leica-users.org] On Behalf
Of Adam Bridge
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 11:58 AM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: [Leica] Three portraits

I did a set of images for a family that I'm pleased with but I'm
hoping for sugestions/critique

<http://www.splitsecondfilms.com/2004-August/Family-group.jpg>

<http://www.splitsecondfilms.com/2004-August/three-smiling.jpg>

<http://www.splitsecondfilms.com/2004-August/three-laughter.jpg>

All were shot with M6ttl, 50mm Summicron.

The first is TMX100 the second two are Tri-X @ 400. All were processed
in XTOL 1:3. I'm thinking that  TMX needs 1:1 to behave better.

For me, from now on, Tri-X just seems to work so well as a portrait
film, at least for me.

I would greatly appreciate comments and suggestions.

Adam
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