# My Girlfriend and I



## RubyMagic (May 27, 2008)

As many of you all know, I have been working (VERY HARD) on my portrait skills. Over the weekend I found a farm (which I didnt hesitate to tresspass on), and I decided to stop and take some photo's with my girlfriend (who is a photographer as well). 

Tell me what you think! Dont be afraid to get harsh!


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## Shibby! (May 27, 2008)

I like the car shots best. The lighting is good, the subject (g/f) seems to be having fun and is casual, and the car adds an interseting background. I like the car, and your g/f is cute. haha.

Few things to note if you want:

1) Adding a simple boarder really improves the look of your images when posted on a forum with white background.

2) If you don't have a light, try to work the natural light. In 1/2, there simply isn't enough light and the pictures are under exposed. Your camera is metering the bright sky and darkening you guys. Spot meter will help, but you'll have a blown out sky. You can do do multiple exposures if you can hold the pose then stitch or add a fake sky.

3) Cropped body parts. You can use this to your advantage or not. I have mixed feelings on the last few pictures. Some are good, some I think are cropped a bit too much. Either way, they need some light work, but are a decent start.

4) Lastly, I love wide angle shots like the car.  I like the added distortion, but maybe remember that longer focal lengths flatten the image.  Steping back futher and zooming in might have helped with the last few shots (70+mm w/ crop factor)


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## Lyncca (May 27, 2008)

Your GF is really cute.  I like the ones of her sitting on the cars as well.  I think with a little post processing they could look good. 

I would be happy to give one a whirl if you say its ok...


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## KristinaS (May 27, 2008)

In addition to the aforementioned things, I'd also recommend watching for stuff in the backgrounds. In the car shots, there are a few random poles around that I'd maybe clone out or something. I do like the car ones best, though.


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## Garbz (May 28, 2008)

Looks reasonably good, the only thing that hasn't been mentioned but annoys me is the compressed dynamic range in each photo. In the process of lightening and darkening various photos they appear to have completely lost contrast.


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## schumionbike (May 28, 2008)

I like the 5th one the best due to the interesting composition and I really like the lighting in that one.   btw, it would help if you number your pictures so I don't have to count, lol.


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## Shibby! (May 28, 2008)

Garbz said:


> Looks reasonably good, the only thing that hasn't been mentioned but annoys me is the compressed dynamic range in each photo. In the process of lightening and darkening various photos they appear to have completely lost contrast.


 
I do agree, they don't have much depth in colour, but I think it goes well with the picture?  Different yes, but different isn't always wrong.


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## shorty6049 (May 28, 2008)

you should probably ask before you start trespassing on people's property.

having said that. i like the ones of your girlfriend because there is actually some framing and composition. the ones of you two just dont seem very captivating


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## Shibby! (May 29, 2008)

Got RubyMagic's permission to edit one of his photo's.

After playing around for 10 minutes this is what I came up with. Not sure if it's overkill, or if the look goes with the photo. Either way, I think I like it.  Just wish her face wasn't blown out.






I really like #4 as well, but I don't think my cloning abilities would be good enough to remove the power poll without looking edited. I wish more of the front of the car was in there, but I think seeing the feet would ruin the pose... Hum.. it's a toss up.


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## lessthan3. (May 29, 2008)

to the OP, nice shots 


and to the edit, whatever you did makes it look like a hdr image  i love it...if i can ask, how did you achieve that effect with just a 10 min edit?

i love it.


and also one more thing to the op, you listen to emarosa? i love the old music...i cant stand the new stuff at all


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## Village Idiot (May 30, 2008)

The subjects are underexposed in most the shots and the shots are dark overall, even the one where you overexposed the subject. They're not something I'd ever give to a client.


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## Alex_B (May 30, 2008)

as it looks you are in much better control of the light and exposure when you are not in the shot yourself. I suggest you take your meter readings while behind the camera, set it to manual and leave it set as it is, then enter the scene and take the shot with those settings.


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## Shibby! (May 30, 2008)

lessthan3. said:


> to the OP, nice shots
> 
> 
> and to the edit, whatever you did makes it look like a hdr image  i love it...if i can ask, how did you achieve that effect with just a 10 min edit?
> ...


 

It's mostly playing with levels, contrast, saturation, etc.  Lightroom makes quick work of it, then touched up with PS with some high radius sharpening, lens correction, burning/dodging, and removed the power guide line.

I used layers to overlay the edit onto the original with 100% exposure and masked his G/F off, then another layer of the edit and blended her so she's not as edited as the car and background.

I think it turned out well, the car anyways, but she lost what little colour she had which makes her quite ghostly.   I like the other shot of her on the car and if I get some spare time in the next few days I might try to match that one up.  She has more colour and not burnt out as badly as the one I edited.  I just didn't like the power poll in the background and don't think my skills are up to the task of removing it.


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## RubyMagic (May 30, 2008)

It is a good edit...just.... like you said, she looks a hot case of 6-feet under disease.

And the edit really brought out my crappy lens' vignetting. Haha.


Emarosa's new stuff is da bomb. Singing is ok too, ya know...


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## Shibby! (May 31, 2008)

RubyMagic said:


> It is a good edit...just.... like you said, she looks a hot case of 6-feet under disease.
> 
> And the edit really brought out my crappy lens' vignetting. Haha.
> 
> ...


 
Haha.

Well, with the burnt out areas it's impossible to bring colour back.  I could saturate her more, but then it'll look strange I think..  Unfortunately not much I could do about it.

Vignetting was done in PP.  Your lens didn't do that.

Funny how I buy all these expensive lenses to prevent vignetting (among other things), then in a lot of my pictures I add it in PP.  Haha.


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## Bifurcator (Jun 2, 2008)

Shibby! said:


> Haha.
> 
> Well, with the burnt out areas it's impossible to bring colour back.




There's a few tools that'll do it simply and quickly and leave little editing work after. With RubyMagic's permission I can show what it looks like. 

Let me know if it's cool to do and post.


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## Tasmaster (Jun 2, 2008)

Well, the first mistake is that you didn't do an American Gothic shot! :mrgreen:

Your photos have a lively vibe going on, but it is lost because the exposure is off (most are underexposed, especially the ones with the bright sky background). Outdoors light can be unforgiving. A couple are also out of focus, which leads me to believe that you need to spend a lot more time with your camera, review the results, and work on them - which is what you are doing by posting here. Keep working and posting then!

Another tip, a straight horizon would improve the car hood shots, make them look less like snapshots.


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## RubyMagic (Jun 3, 2008)

Tasmaster said:


> Well, the first mistake is that you didn't do an American Gothic shot! :mrgreen:
> 
> Your photos have a lively vibe going on, but it is lost because the exposure is off (most are underexposed, especially the ones with the bright sky background). Outdoors light can be unforgiving. A couple are also out of focus, which leads me to believe that you need to spend a lot more time with your camera, review the results, and work on them - which is what you are doing by posting here. Keep working and posting then!
> 
> Another tip, a straight horizon would improve the car hood shots, make them look less like snapshots.




You cant have a straight horizon when you live in the hills, homie.


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## Shibby! (Jun 3, 2008)

RubyMagic said:


> You cant have a straight horizon when you live in the hills, homie.


 

I was just going to post that.

I hate the stressing of flat horizons when horizons are not always flat.

Yes, a flat horizon, or water horizon needs to be flat, but a narrow view of a hill will always get this comment.

Not tearing a strip off anybody, but horizons do not always have to be flat.


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## Bifurcator (Jun 4, 2008)

RubyMagic said:


> You cant have a straight horizon when you live in the hills, homie.



Hehe, so true. 

But I think all this "straight line" stuff must come from or be targeted at total beginners anyway. I can see it for a standard sunset over water type shot or something but every time I go to a highly paid professional's site and look at their gallery none of it is straight lines and ALL (or almost all) of it has the camera tilted quite purposefully. Portraiture, wedding, event, nature, sports, most all of it. And then almost contrarily I read photo forum sights and there are often lots of people saying 'no good, the lines aren't straight'. It's kinda confusing! :er:


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## Tasmaster (Jun 4, 2008)

Sure you can have a straight horizon if you want. You even have it in the rest of your photos. But hey, chill out everyone, it's not like a photographic dogma, i just suggested it for the particular photos in question. 

In short, all i was trying to say that if you pay attention to your surroundings as well as your subject, you will improve your photos. I find that this is a very good piece of advice when you move up from "enthusiast" taking snapshots of everything to "budding photographer" and i stand by it.


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## molsen (Jun 6, 2008)

#4 FTW


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## kundalini (Jun 6, 2008)

Could have sworn that I commented on these photos previously.


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