Hello MM community, it's always hard to get honest feed back from friends and family and thought I would take advantage of this forum to get help on some of my images (posing, lighting, composition, retouching ect..). I am new to the professional scene so I value any feed back you can provide!

I got a chance to work with a local MUA/hairstylist and she wanted to show off some of her work, we weren't able to find a model to work with us during her schedule so she just modeled for the shoot herself.  Here are two from MM Gallery:

https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/pic/44043393

https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/pic/44043391


Thanks
Jonathan

Sorry guys let me embed the images:

Photo 1:


Photo 2:

Hey,

I understand that sometimes it is difficulty to receive accurate criticism from those close to you because the responses may be biased and glad you were able to come to ModelMayhem to get some honest reviews.
First, allow me to say that any feedback said by me or any other person should be taken with a grain of salt.
As you may know as being a photographer, there is always that "artistic view" put into the work.
What you may focus or urge for may be something I dislike or try to avoid in my photos, and vice versa.
An example is on your first photo, someone may say to edit out that run-away hair strand across the forehead, but what if you were going for that look...
The first photo is great and to my eyes, appear flawless.
Some feedback on the second is change the aperture or allow more of the image to be in focused. If it dropped off gradually, I may not have seen an issue. Secondly, the right eye seems a bit dark when compared to the model's left eye.

Other than that, great job and keep it up.

They look great.

My view point on image, wish eyes were at least looking at rose, rather than off to models right, because of this you are hitting the camera with the white of the eye. Usually works best to have the eyes looking where nose is pointed to avoid this)
Quite dark under models chin, could see use of a fill light
Right side of photo is dead space; it also allows the viewers eyes to wander off the image at the lower right corner of photo. A possible alternative would be to crop tighter to models left shoulder. [Eliminating the dark void, and gutter]


Nose is in the air giving her a snobby appearance
Out of focus blob to photo left of models cheek is distracting

I wish you well

RG12 thanks for the feedback!!  As far as the runaway across the forehead to be honest it was the models "thing" I didn't really have feelings either way.  When your working with clients, are you very insistent that they fix those runaways or just fix them in post, or is a balancing act?

The look we were going for the second shot is a POV of her applying makeup to a clients face,  besides the shallow DOF would a wider shot allow for more context?  I see the left eye is darker and is strange to me as the light was coming from the models right, is it because her right eye isn't as wide open as the left eye or was the soft box angle to extreme?  I did brighten the iris's slightly I can also brighten the white in the right eye to help balance them out.

Thanks for the feedback!

Lee

Good catch on the whites of the eyes, i'll keep that tip in mind to catch more of the iris. I was afraid to lose the contour of her cheek bone, is it better to add a fill light/reflector and burn in the contours or lift the shadows under the chin in post (next time I will just try both see which comes out better)? I'll keep an eye on the framing for sure, keep that void under control.

The look we were going for the second shot is a POV of her applying makeup to a clients face,  besides increasing DOF would a wider shot allow for more context?  I was thinking if it was to much of the makeup brush in focus would detract from her, but it seems I blew out the brush too much and did the thing I was trying to avoid in the first place lol.


Thanks Lee!