Recent photoshoot, how did I do?

The main shot with the whole thing.

 

I then closed in on her a bit, I only have my phone camera to work with right now and vertical format actually seemed better for this one. (Horizontal just kept looking wrong for some reason.)

 

I think this is my favorite shot from the whole thing. There's just something so poetic about it. This shot was supposed to be just for showing the bracelet I made that she has on but it turned out so much better than just that!

 

This shot was mostly to show off the belt thingy I made. I would love to be able to take square photos on my note 5 (As that would have been a better fit for this I think) so if anyone knows how to make that possible please let me know!

 

Legs! I took this mostly because I liked how I arranged things in it.

 

This whole shoot was super spontaneous. I was thinking of how I could get some cool shots of her in this outfit and got the idea to go outside. I saw all the leaves from my Aunt's Japanese maple tree and ended up incorporating those into it as well. I specifically went for the ones that had some red in the middle of them still and ended up combing the yard and shaking the tree for about 5 minutes to get an adequate amount. there seems to be an unusually dull one on the right of her head and I can't remember if I put that there or it fell on her and I left it in.

Good setup. Sometimes the setups one makes just by noodling around and using what's to hand turn out the best! The plant motif in particular (artificial flowers + natural momiji leaves + grass) works very nicely against the shocking blueness of her hair and eyes. In other cirbleepstances all those elements would have become overwhelming but the way they're balanced against the grass texture keeps them from that.

 

I think the framing is quite good. I wouldn't have gone for a portrait orientation with her in dead centre like that but the extra interest from the texture of the grass and the momiji leaves makes it work. Maybe that's why landscape looked "wrong" to you.

 

Your favourite shot is my least favourite, though. It might be because the presence of a face grazing the viewer's eye's path knocks it away from the leaf at the same time the sharp focus on the leaf is pulling attention towards it. The focus is thus split in a way you didn't intend and the overall effect is diffused because of this, I think.

 

The second and fourth shots are my favourites, personally. They bounce my eyes around and provide them with a nice platter of visual interest without being diffuse like the third shot.

Ah thanks! Yeah, I think landscape may have looked wrong because it made for too much grass which essentially served as an almost blank space in this.

 

I kind of agree. I ideally wanted a shot more like

this. For once I wasn't pissed about instagram cropping all my verticals, however if I got it to cut off at that area in the photo everything else was aligned wrong so I settled for this and in a way I do like it anyways. But, I tend to like things like that in photos for whatever reason so I'm just a bit weird I guess. I have photoshop CS2 but for whatever reason it doesn't seem to work like it should. I look up tutorials for CS2 and find that often the things it's telling me to do are not there so I wonder if I need to set the program up somehow. It's a legit copy btw so that's not the issue. If you know of any good substitutions that would be wonderful.

Hi hi! I really like your photos! I don't think you really need to do a whole lot to them to improve them, all of them are pretty okay with out doing anything. There are a few things you can do that can make a bigger impact in your photos!

 

First I want to note that sometimes bright colored dolls on dark backgrounds are okay, however in this case your dolls hair (which is a beautiful color) is just slightly too bright for the grass around her. I feel that if you brightened up the grass it would look much better. Since you use CS2, if you go into color selection, you can just change the green levels in the picture to brighten up the grass without changing the rest of your image. (Sadly, I can't post pictures, if not I would show you an example!)

 

The second thing I wanted to note was the cropping as well. For your favorite shot, I think the way you cropped it on instagram is a huge improvement! I completely agree with Wayfinder that the face draws too much attention from the photo. In photography, most people are drawn to faces and that's where we tend to look first, instead of the focal point which is the bracelet and the leaf. When you cropped her eyes out of it, your face goes to what is in focus instead, and helps the eye see what you were really trying to show or convey.

 

I wanted to also mention the cropping in the bottom photo. The image itself is not bad, but you should crop out the bottom of her hair in post processing. The reason being is because her hair is such a bright color. When you feature just her legs, you want that to be the focus of the shot. When she has two brightly colored tufts of hair that seem to come out of her hips, rather than travel down from her head it looks a little odd. If you plan on doing a shot like this, I recommend moving her hair out of the way before you take the shot, or cropping it in CS2 later.

 

Other than that, I think your photos are great! I love her posing and the fact that one knee is higher than the other, and I like how you laid her hair out in the grass. C: Keep experimenting with your photography because practice makes perfect! And everyone has room to grow. C:

I think you did a really good job. The lighting is perfect, her hair seems to almost glow and the placement of everything is very natural. Even her positioning is very natural. I would love to see more of your photos

Thank you both. Unfortunately I don't quite agree about cropping the hair out in the last one. It at least to my eye doesn't attract much attention at all and in order to crop it all out I'd end up cropping out other things I wanted to keep plus it would make the picture very oddly short and wide which wouldn't work for the subject matter at all. Maybe it would be better with out the hair but the only fix in my skill range would make the picture worse in my opinion. Also photoshop is so buggy and difficult for me to use that even very basic things are a struggle (even with tutorials, they're never quite right for me for some reason) So I'm looking for a replacement.

I love these pictures! I really like the way her hair stands out against the grass. The dress, rose charms and socks are amazingly beautiful too!

I love these pictures! I really like the way her hair stands out against the grass. The dress, rose charms and socks are amazingly beautiful too!

 

Aww! Thanks!

Beautiful! All of it comes together so nicely, my favorite part is the way the hair spreads out on the grass, its stunning

I know nothing about photography, but that was beautiful. That first photo stole my heart

Thank you guys so much! I'm glad you liked them!