Photo Critique #4: “Gold Country Blacksmith” | Portrait Critique

Aaron

Greg, what a great submission this week. I’ve looked at this portrait and the first thing I thought was, “Man, there isn’t anything that I would improve here! What am I suppose to tell Greg??” I feared something like this would come up eventually and it’s my job as a critic to offer you suggestions on how to improve the image or give you ideas on approaches that you might not have considered. Photography is grounded in techniques that foster visual communication, the more of these techniques you execute, the stronger the image. With all that being said, this image communicates wonderfully. But I wouldn’t be a very good sounding board if I couldn’t come up with idea for you to consider.

I noticed that you photographed the image at 800 ISO. This is a pretty high ISO for the lighting conditions. Then I saw that you were holding a 70-200mm and you were all the way out at 200mm. I’m thinking you might have done this so that you could keep the shutter speed high so that you wouldn’t get any lens shake. Now, in the original, I see such a small amount of noise that I think it enhances the texture of the man’s face. But in your edit, I feel like the noise competes with the texture of the man’s face. I also really enjoyed the rich color in the original image. The only color I didn’t really find appealing was all the yellow in the man’s face. You might have been feeling this too and it’s possible that is why you chose to desaturate the image in post.

The lighting appears to come from the bottom left. In general, lighting coming from the bottom of a face gives a ghastly or creepy feel to an image. Because we are terrestrial beings and are top lit all day, catch lights coming from the top of our eyes are the most natural. Ten o’clock and two o’clock are good positions for these. The only problem I see with lighting him like this would have been a shadow that would have been created by the brim of the hat. So I think getting light into his face from the direction you chose worked.

I’ve had times when I’ve captured an image and it was so clean, I couldn’t wait to get it home and enhance it. The problem was, I was trying to enhance something that needed no enhancement. In fact, I only ended up making it a less aesthetic version of the original. I’m not saying this is what happened here, but I do prefer the original image out of camera. Sometimes you just nail it in camera!

I appreciate the relationship you built with your subject. The man is looking right at you with an intense gaze. Whatever you said to him, he trusts you to meet your lens’s gaze. There is a definite talent to helping subjects feel comfortable and directing them to get the image you have in your head. I think you were very successful with that here. I also like the fact that your camera is even with his eyes. You aren’t shooting down on him or up at him. This establishes a very even relationship between the viewer and the subject.

Your composition is solid. You’ve utilized the rule of thirds to place his eyes on that upper compositional line and it works. We are held by his gaze. This is so important for a portrait. A powerful portrait is one where the viewer has nowhere to go but the subject’s eyes. The depth of field is really successful and I’m so happy you didn’t just stick him against the wooden background you’d found. So many times, photographers find an interesting textured background and place their subject directly in front of it. This destroys any sense of depth you were hoping to create. They way you left a hint of the textured wall in the photo to establish the scene but used the open space to suggest depth was brilliant. This gives us somewhere for our eye to go, it gives us a sense that there is something beyond the subject. Great portrait.

Megan

What a strong and simple portrait of this man. His eyes gaze right at the viewer and have a nice catch of light, this engages me right away. His expression and texture in his face lead to the viewer to understand more about the character in this portrait. The tight crop and shallow depth of field is a skillful way to bring the viewers attention to his face. The color palate is very cohesive as well.

One thing I noticed from a technical perspective on the image is the amount of noise. I am guessing that since the original image was much darker, that your work in post created the all of the noise. Be aware of your exposure when shooting, its valuable to “shoot to the right” on your histogram without over exposing your highlights. Slightly overexposing a RAW image will give you more to work with in post.

David

Jason

I was drawn in to the eyes of the subject, which speaks about the photograph’s strength to connect with the viewer. This image has a lot of grit to it. There is a lot of texture in the face, clothing and background that all work toward telling the story of this person and the raw intensity that he holds. It’s really great.

I really enjoyed this photograph, until I saw the change from the original image. I do appreciate burning down the lower left of the frame, because it does work to keep my attention at the face. However, I kept feeling that there may have been an over adjustment to the brightening of the shadows. I really enjoyed the light in the unedited shot and how it had a more defined transition from highlight to shadow. There was more depth in the image that was taken away when the shadows were brightened. Brightening the overall light intensity also gave the feeling of the subject being additionally lit in the shade, whereas the original can clearly be seen as the subject in the ambient shade light. This effect makes the eyes appear more squinty than pensive. I also like the low key light in the original because there was more color in the face. The brighter image seems to have washed out the face.

The photo is a striking portrait, so I’d advise from overworking it in post. Less is more and enjoy getting some things right in camera. The light is great and keeping those shadows in play will keep the noise level down. It’s a tough balance to get it right. Either way, the composition, lighting, and content of this image is great.

Guest Evaluator – Seshu Badrinath

I am happy that you chose to include the .dng file with the final version of the portrait in .jpg form. It gives me an easier way to see where you started the process and where you chose to end it.

From looking at the portrait, I can tell that you were easily a stop or a stop and half under-exposed. Was this intentional? It’s always easier to work with a raw file that is well exposed than one that is either under or over exposed. Just imagine if you had shot JPGs! That would have been challenging for sure.

Compositionally, I feel you could have moved to your left a bit more to avoid that glaring hot spot in the lower left. That detracts from the image. Almost always, a pure white space or object in an image will be the first thing a human eye will be attracted to. We are wired that way. So, try and avoid these patches of white (or light tones), especially if they don’t contribute to the photograph.

All that said, I love how directly you have chosen to engage with this man. His eyes are looking right back at you (and there by at us), so it makes not seeing him nearly impossible. It’s an engaging portrait.

Looking at the final jpg, however, I feel very strongly about perhaps making this a black & white portrait instead of color. The textures and grain that you have added, would truly pop a lot more if it were monochrome. I see that you took care of that hot spot in the lower left. The burn looks natural and satisfactory. The finished jpg also reveals more of this man’s left ear; something I would have left dark to give this portrait even more character and drama. The finished JPG looks like you introduced a reflector from camera left. The punchy light works for me, but as I said, my thoughts are this would look stunning as a black and white print instead.