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DPChallenge Forums >> Individual Photograph Discussion >> I didn't make her eye red!
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12/02/2013 09:07:45 AM · #1
I really don't get the crap score and feedback from my last entry. Maybe I just need to tell people that like to look and dress differently that I can't photograph them because it is too weird. Here is a straight out of camera shot and an edited shot, cropped close so you can see. I fixed a few pimples and stray hairs but the rest was all basic stuff. 300 entries in and it may stay at that.

12/02/2013 09:25:18 AM · #2
I've been very surprised at your score. It seems like that contact lenses never work here:

12/02/2013 09:32:30 AM · #3
That one worked out much better than mine :)
12/02/2013 09:33:25 AM · #4
I think it's that one eye looks really pink/red and the other is dark. You MAY have gone a bit far with the hair/skin, but I dunno. I liked it well enough.

The score? Almost a 6 and you're complaining?
12/02/2013 09:41:47 AM · #5
Originally posted by Spork99:

I think it's that one eye looks really pink/red and the other is dark. You MAY have gone a bit far with the hair/skin, but I dunno. I liked it well enough.

The score? Almost a 6 and you're complaining?


4 years ago a 6 would be amazing, now I am disappointed with anything under a 6 or top ten. Especially with portrait work. I think it is because I was shooting for a high score, and when I do that I am always disappointed.
12/02/2013 09:45:43 AM · #6
Originally posted by MinsoPhoto:

Originally posted by Spork99:

I think it's that one eye looks really pink/red and the other is dark. You MAY have gone a bit far with the hair/skin, but I dunno. I liked it well enough.

The score? Almost a 6 and you're complaining?


4 years ago a 6 would be amazing, now I am disappointed with anything under a 6 or top ten. Especially with portrait work. I think it is because I was shooting for a high score, and when I do that I am always disappointed.


I think you should look at it as you doing excellent work, but also stepping outside the box of what does well at DPC, not as something to be angry about.
12/02/2013 02:05:15 PM · #7
Joshua. When somebody posts a tread like this it implies that they are wanting to hear comments both pro and anti. So I will have a try at anti.

Two caveats. First I didn't vote, but if I had I'd have voted 3 on your entry. Second, you are evidently a professional, and I am clearly not, so you will need to filter my remarks through that limitation.

You seem to have been spanked in the voting (given that you say that you see anything sub-6 as spanked) as a result of your subject's choices and not yours. She wants to look this way, so what are you to do? Your job is presumably to give her what she wants. The kindest thing you might have done would have been to post process her eyes to make them appear plausibly human, but I suppose she wouldn't have appreciated that. So you're stuck with the alien eyes, and also with the preposterous wig. That, I suppose, is the burden that a pro portrait photographer must bear in silence.

If we put aside your client's expectations (and DPC voters have no option but to do exactly that), the portrait is simply awful. It's cheesy. She simply doesn't look like a real person, The background motif is so jarring when viewed against that of her dress that it seems a deliberate attempt to be as aesthetically offensive as possible. I pray that wasn't your own choice. There's more (for example, the twee bunny ears), but you don't want to hear it, and I don't want to say it.

Having put the boot in so appallingly, I want to record that I think you are a very competent and accomplished photographer, and I've enjoyed quite a bit of your work and your humour. Especially those images where you are using yourself as a subject, and poking a wee bit of fun at yourself. So I assure you I am not saying you are a crap photographer; just that this picture is far from your best work.

In my view, the lesson for you here is that what pleases your client (and, by professional extension, pleases you) may not always be universally acclaimed by the necessarily objective DPC voters with no personal stake in the picture.

To stay your entries here at the present 300 would be a big loss to the whole DPC community. Don't do that, Joshua.
12/02/2013 02:18:26 PM · #8
Originally posted by ubique:

In my view, the lesson for you here is that what pleases your client (and, by professional extension, pleases you) may not always be universally acclaimed by the necessarily objective DPC voters with no personal stake in the picture.

I think this is a good lesson for anyone who submits a photo for the judgement of others, whether DPC voters, an exhibition jury, or almost anyone outside your immediate family, with the one exception/clarification that the voters are only "objective" in the sense that they have "no personal stake in the picture," but that otherwise they are likely to be highly "subjective" in how they apply their personal experiences and biases to their evaluation.
12/02/2013 02:29:12 PM · #9
Joshua,

I completely agree with Ubique here; I was just trying to figure out how to phrase it.

Hang around a bit longer, willya?
12/02/2013 03:16:41 PM · #10
ubique, thank you. It is much to easy to view my own work through my eyes and what the client asks that I get caught up and take the scores personally. Sadly I often will go through the phases of trying to get a good score and later shooting stuff that is strictly because I want to shoot it. Obviously it is not seen as a great portrait, now I must ask what would you do differently to elevate this shot? I was paid to shoot what she was wearing (the whole session was about showcasing the wigs, dresses and contacts that she models) So obviously I am not styling that but as far as the lighting and processing, what do you think would work better? This was one of the more processed images as everything else was basic light room tweaks which took 20 minutes for 200+ photos. So much of it is more basic and perhaps that is what this look demanded, but I enjoy playing with the lighting and processing. Here I thought I did well with it but I did not. I honestly appreciate the feedback and I wholeheartedly believe this place is why I am how I am.
12/02/2013 04:02:34 PM · #11
I think one of the biggest problems is that the one eye appears red, but the other doesn't, so it looks more like a photography mistake than the color contacts. If both eyes had the red look, then it would be more obvious that it was real instead of bad red eye. Color contacts just aren't the norm anymore, and red-eye in photography unfortunately is much more prevalent, so I think it needs to be a little more obvious by having the light show that both eyes are red. ?

Also, one of the other problems I have with it is simply that the outfit doesn't really fit well on her, and the pose emphasizes that. It's gapping at the top and just not laying very well in the front. It's not very flattering. Pinning it back a bit so it fit better might have helped.

Also, I like the lighting a lot, with the exception of the shadow on her nose. It makes her nose look a lot larger, imo, and isn't as flattering to her face. Just filling it a little might also have helped.

I'm giving this critique simply because I'm trying to improve my own lighting and portraiture, so take it all with a grain of salt, since I know next to nothing about this. You certainly beat my pitiful attempt.
12/02/2013 04:07:00 PM · #12
Originally posted by MinsoPhoto:

ubique, thank you. ....but as far as the lighting and processing, what do you think would work better?

You're asking the wrong man, Joshua. Paul's not interested in "photography" at all, only in photographs. I have never seen him make a technical suggestion, I don't think :-) And I don't feel qualified to do so either, this isn't my kettle of fish.

I will say this: the posing feels very awkward to me in this shot, and that's unusual for you. Her left arm is taking WAY too much prominence in the image, and her right hand seems an afterthought.
12/02/2013 04:18:56 PM · #13
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Originally posted by MinsoPhoto:

ubique, thank you. ....but as far as the lighting and processing, what do you think would work better?

You're asking the wrong man ....


Yeah, I'm not your guy, I wouldn't know ... sorry.
12/02/2013 04:51:19 PM · #14
Originally posted by ubique:


You seem to have been spanked in the voting (given that you say that you see anything sub-6 as spanked) as a result of your subject's choices and not yours. She wants to look this way, so what are you to do? Your job is presumably to give her what she wants. The kindest thing you might have done would have been to post process her eyes to make them appear plausibly human, but I suppose she wouldn't have appreciated that. So you're stuck with the alien eyes, and also with the preposterous wig. That, I suppose, is the burden that a pro portrait photographer must bear in silence.


I guess I don't share in the expectation that a person should be burdened with looking the way another person expects people to look. I don't find the appearance any more offensive than I would that of anyone who looks different than I do, say someone who chooses to get tattoos or wear their hair in a fuschia mohawk or wear clothes different than mine. If anything, it makes me even MORE interested in them.

Message edited by author 2013-12-02 16:53:43.
12/02/2013 04:51:26 PM · #15
For me, the biggest issue is the harsh processing. You've lost all the subtlety in the original. The eyes and the hair are the biggest losses, now where there should be a mellow gradient, we have hard black with a sharp delineation, like a large radius sharpening with a bit of contrast enhancement.

I also don't think red eyes goes with a blue outfit/background - but I don't at all see why people say the dress and the BG don't work, I think I'd have liked something else better, but this isn't horrible.
12/02/2013 04:53:18 PM · #16
This discussion made me think about this article with a gallery of cosplayers at home by Klaus Pichler.

They may not be your thing, but I think they're awesome.
12/02/2013 05:09:10 PM · #17
In my opinion, it's a great photo, with a great lighting. I gave you a 7, and hoped to see it on the top ten. If fact, for this challenge I have missed completely which photos would be on the top (except for the first one). After thinking about it for a while, I just guess people have given low scores for portraits that don't bring our words like: "character", "personality", and so on. I had a different thought about portraits... now I know what DPC members like ;-)
12/02/2013 05:12:11 PM · #18
Originally posted by Spork99:

This discussion made me think about this article with a gallery of cosplayers at home by Klaus Pichler.

They may not be your thing, but I think they're awesome.


That's grand! Would make an awesome challenge.
12/02/2013 05:13:14 PM · #19
I thought "cosplay" right away when seeing the image.
The colours of the dress and the background weren't an issue to me.
The wig, bunny ears, the contacts, watch as a pendant,... it all fitted in the cosplay theme imho.
And to be honest: I like well staged cosplay-images.
But what puzzled me was to decide what was her part in the play: the rabbit? Alice? Combination of both?
That's where I couldn't place the use of the contacts.
The red eyes with the rabbit ears brought "Myxomatosis" into my mind (sorry...).
For Alice, they didn't work either.

I guess that to me the biggest problem was the undefined role.
As if there was only 1 picture which would be taken and there was no possible way to decide on which props to use. So, everything was pumped in the image.

Message edited by author 2013-12-02 17:15:39.
12/02/2013 05:25:08 PM · #20
Originally posted by Nadine_Vb:

I thought "cosplay" right away when seeing the image.
The colours of the dress and the background weren't an issue to me.
The wig, bunny ears, the contacts, watch as a pendant,... it all fitted in the cosplay theme imho.
And to be honest: I like well staged cosplay-images.
But what puzzled me was to decide what was her part in the play: the rabbit? Alice? Combination of both?
That's where I couldn't place the use of the contacts.
The red eyes with the rabbit ears brought "Myxomatosis" into my mind (sorry...).
For Alice, they didn't work either.

I guess that to me the biggest problem was the undefined role.
As if there was only 1 picture which would be taken and there was no possible way to decide on which props to use. So, everything was pumped in the image.


I immediately thought of her as Alice and the White Rabbit's strange offspring...

I know some cosplayers are strict about what "role" a costume fits into, but I wouldn't consider it a requirement.
12/02/2013 05:33:37 PM · #21
I guess that in cosplay we should (try to) keep an open mind on how someone wishes to fill in the role.
You're probably right.

12/02/2013 06:28:36 PM · #22
Allow me to flaunt my ignorance: cosplay? My first guess would be playing with costumes...??

Spork, that link is AWESOME!!!!!
12/02/2013 06:44:27 PM · #23
Originally posted by tanguera:

Allow me to flaunt my ignorance: cosplay? My first guess would be playing with costumes...??

Spork, that link is AWESOME!!!!!

"Costume Play", yes. And yes, the link's incredible.
12/02/2013 06:49:49 PM · #24
Originally posted by giantmike:

Originally posted by Spork99:

This discussion made me think about this article with a gallery of cosplayers at home by Klaus Pichler.

They may not be your thing, but I think they're awesome.


That's grand! Would make an awesome challenge.


Not at all my thing - but I agree - awesome! I would so try to do this.
12/02/2013 07:35:14 PM · #25
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Originally posted by tanguera:

Allow me to flaunt my ignorance: cosplay? My first guess would be playing with costumes...??

Spork, that link is AWESOME!!!!!

"Costume Play", yes. And yes, the link's incredible.


Now, for an educational encore - go look up "Furries"...

Hell, I just learned about the Burned Furs... And here I was thinking that all furries were sexually dysfunctional...

Message edited by author 2013-12-02 19:37:55.
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