Formal portrait of the Mrs & I

[makario]

Its been a while since I posted a pic for critique, so here goes.Itook this pic a couple of weeks ago and looking to get some c&c.

Sepia


Colour Version


Cheers
Mak

[biggerry]

straight off the bat, i would say colour version hands down, with that red lippy and the red dress it would be a cardinal sin to do anything else but colour

[chrisk]

x2
the sepia doesn't work for me either makario. at least, not that shade. as bigg suggested, red lips, red dress and a lovely olive complexion...i wanna see that in colour !

i'd also consider having your camera set up a little higher and angling it down. at the moment your wife seems to be having to tilt her head up a tad and its got a bit of an "up nose" thing goin' on.

[surenj]

colour is the way to go I think..

[makario]

Thanks guys for the input and suggestion of camera placement.

How about the lighting, I used 2 speedlights fired through white brollies on either side.

[ian.bertram]

The lighting IMHO is absolutely fine. I would like to have seen a darker background- there's a pattern or lettering across it that is somewhat distracting. And yes, like everyone else the colour version is heaps better.

[gstark]

I would like to have seen a darker background- there's a pattern or lettering across it that is somewhat distracting.

I think it's a pattern of some sort.

Moving away from the background, but keeping the same lighting to subject distance, would help make the background darker. Opening the aperture by a stop (as well) would then also soften the background.

Or else use extra lights on the background (only, from behind the subjects) to totally blow it out.

And yes, like everyone else the colour version is heaps better.

No comparison, in fact.

[makario]

the background is actually a curtain, that I was trying to totally blur out... didnt open up the Aperature as much as I should have had. I was using a 24-70f2.8 and I was worried that f2.8 would be a bit too thin in terms of the DOF

[Matt. K]

Mak
NIce work but something is missing....the hands. Without the hands it's not really a portrait...more of a ID pic. I think if you move the camera back and include your hands around her waist then the image would have better composition. Got a gold watch?...wear that also, it'll add a nice touch. The lighting is not bad....but if you can move forward of the background then it will be slightly more out of focus. That would improve the background. Thanks for posting.

[ozimax]

I think it's all been said but here goes:

Exposure: Perfect
Facial look: Perfect
Background: Distracting
Colour: Yes

I actually like the closer crop in this instance as opposed to Matt's comment on including hands, watch etc, but I do take his point too.

Great photo as a keepsake.

Ozi

[Oz_Beachside]

Hi Mak,
Its a great job, taking self portraits like this is no easy task. Two areas i'd like to note, the eyes are at two very different levels, as the viewer, I'd like to see the eyes at a similar height in the frame. Secondly, the right hand side looks too tightly cropped, leaves me wanting to see what you cropped out.

For a sepia or B&W, perhaps add a light to the background so its brighter than skin tones and nice seperation, or add distance to make it darker.