Atherton & District Amateur Photographic Society

Right then, my 1st ever portrait of a non family member or friend (actually an old school friends other half I had never met before) a fairly difficult job, no lighting or studio, basically natural light coming through white curtains in a small bedroom.



I rarely PP my images, I try to get it right in camera, all I did was convert to B&W and darkened the background after smoothing out the joins in the background (black paper tacked to the wall)

any comments welcome

It's a bold sort of thing to try to do. By preference, I think I'd go for something less coy, but that depends on how the sitter feels about it. If we're going to celebrate the joys of pregnancy and motherhood then this just seems to hold back a bit.

However, as I said, a bold thing to do and well done for even taking the task on.

It's a decent effort and I'm sure she will love it.

I'm no expert on maternity shots but I think there are some things that you could think about for next time:

- There's not much light in her eyes. Perhaps you could have angled her face / body to get more light in?

- The image is quite contrasty and she is merging into the dark background. Perhaps you could have included some form of back-lighting to add some seperation from the dark background?

- The white sheet is very dominant in the image. Consider other ways to protect her modesty with less of the sheet?

- Her holding her chin up combined with your low shooting angle is bringing out her double chin. Consider posing her with her chin more forward and down next time.

- I know you said you don't post-process images. The bra strap marks on her back would bug me a little. Consider cloning them out. Next time ask her to remove her underwear about 30 minutes before you're due to shoot. She can cover up with a bathrobe until you're ready for her. This will give strap marks time to fade away.


I'm trying to help. Please don't take my comments as criticism.

Best regards
Paul

Mr Wall, welcome to the club and forum.
I really like your photo, an the reason is mainly, if you look at her facial expression, you can't put that on.
You've got a lot of shadows and it's a bit dark, but at the end of the day, what does she think?

You say you hadn't met her previously, so you obviously had a good repertoire with her.

You've done well to cover the important parts that you should in the photo and leave the bump and her smile in the photo.

I'm sure she is very happy with it, and so should you be as you've improvised a studio setting and I think you've done well.

this one seems to be better to my eye, same minimal editing.