Yoyo

[monkp]

my first attempt to photograph car and model

1.


2.


I quite like this particular one from the set because of the colors and perspective ...

C&C welcome

[arteacher]

The first one is composed well, but the model is lost because all the colour is in the car. If she had had a red or green top It would be much better.
The second is more about the model and not the car, but she looks uncomfortable, and therefor unnatural. I think if you cropped it tighter you might like it better. The colour and lighting in both are beautiful.

[roger h]

I looked at the whole series on your Flickr account. Over-all I like them. I like the framing, DOF and generally the way you shot them, but I can make some suggestions. Are you shooting the car, or shooting the model? Which is the subject, and which is the prop? You seem to go back and forth through the series. My suggestion is that you either shoot the model and leave the car as the prop, or shoot the car as the subject and leave the model as the prop, but switching back and forth is just kind of confusing. The other suggestion I have is kind of personal preference, but the images look dull, flat, and kind of lifeless. The top the model is wearing is a nice, drab, gray, which is ok if the shots are about the car, but not OK if they're about the model. There's just nothing grabbing there. The greens are muted. The car's finish, while shiny, is a dull, lifeless red. I think you could improve these a lot just by increasing the saturation, and as arteacher suggests, getting the model's wardrobe to be more attention-centric would be helpful.

Since they're so low-contrast and the model is wearing gray, it might even be interesting to convert some of them to B&W and see how they look. That would eliminate the attention-grabbing reds in the car and with some selective cropping, bring the model more into focus as the subject of the photos if that's what you're after.

Remember, however, that opinions are just as valuable as what you pay for them!

[Don Kondra]

With all due respect, I just can't get past the blown highlights.

How about a different angle, time of day, etc...

The models casual attire/posing isn't quite doing it for me. Perhaps a dress or even some swim wear

Darn good first attempt considering how many elements need to be considered to bring it all together.

Cheers, Don

[roger h]

With all due respect, I just can't get past the blown highlights.


Cheers, Don

Interesting, Don. I frequently use blown highlights consciously to isolate my subject from an otherwise distracting background. I find the endless debate on dynamic range and blown highlights fascinating because film did exactly the same thing, yet in digital it seems to be a fatal flaw for many. In many of his shots, the blown highlights do, in fact, isolate the car and model from a distracting background. In others, though, it does just come across as an over-exposed background as a result of an exposure error.

[Don Kondra]

Perhaps it's just the fact that I'm running a trial version of Capture One comparing it to other editing programs so I'm super critical right now

This is a temporary thing but I find my mind is first drawn to the technical aspects and it's not till later that I can appreciate the essence of the capture..

Cheers, Don

[monkp]

thanks all for the inputs

yes I processed them intentionally to low-contrast hence colors were dull and muted and agreed that model was posed slightly awkward in second image. I was wanting to create similar color profile like this one


_5255318-2 by skullofsilver, on Flickr

and it seems that I still need more time to get it right ... and need to work more to get subject and prop to be more distinguishable in my photo too

I took these photos in a workshop that was hosted by my photography club, so unfortunately I had no idea what model will be wearing during the shoot, but it's a good advice to ensure that model picked the right dress before the shooting session

[arteacher]

That has always been a problem with "group shoots"- you don't have very much control.