Night Shooting With Three Beautiful Women

[LGM]

There's a new style for me here somewhere, but I dunno if I've quite grasped it. I'm just experimenting with low light and night shooting, as the title below suggests.

Night Shooting with Three Beautiful Women

I'm not too happy with these. They look cool when they're small, but if you zoom in far enough the quality really degrades. Maybe because I've been working on this at midnight, the quality can be lacking... I dunno. I still like them, the quality (blurriness and jaggedyness) just bugs me.

I'm really digging this high-contrast look, though. It works well for night shots.

[LGM]

Well, with 100 views, surely someone has something to say....

Andail?

[Nacho]

Yes... Can you pass me their messenger adresses?

[Krysis]

cute girls and cute pics
maybe you should use some type of blurring or something to make them look more prosional if u know what I mean.

[Chicky]

The initial flaw for me is that they're not beautiful, in my mind. The models looks far to much like every other girl you see on the street, same bleach blonde hair, curled or straitened.
htin
But what you've done with the lighting is cool. 001, 003, 006, and 007 are my favorites and 009 being completely different to the others and althought a bit pervy still a great image.

Not much of a photographer, but tried to give some input anyway.

[Paper Carnival]

I love 010.jpg and 003 the most. I'm far from a photographer, so I don't know if I should criticise them about something, all I know is that they're all great photos

[ildu]

Yup, I gotta agree. Most of the images are way too grainy to use. Are you using a regular digital camera? Also, some of the angles and poses are very awkward. You should plan the angles more and include some more of the background rather than squashing in the model. In addition, the less your probably inexperienced models pose, the better the images will look.

Spontaneity is the keyword here. This is why I like 010.jpg the most. It's pretty much the only one that has some life to it. It seems spontaneuous, the girl isn't posing and it doesn't show the girl as the only important aspect of the image. Additionally it would be even better if the image wasn't as grainy, if the model wasn't blurry and if some retouching for depth blurring and possible artifacts was done.

[DanClarke]

Ive only looked at a few of the images closely, but it seems to me your problem is the actual quality of the camera/lens. I have a teeny little sony digital camera which produces similar 'grain' on every photo taken, and theres no colour clarity or sharpness to anything shot.

[Andail]

I think many of them are good. 001 in b/w is natural and classy, the bridge in the background is cool.
010 is good, but there is a cosmetical issue with how this strong highlight hits her nose. You should have turned her away from the sun, so that the light would illuminate only her hair, while her face would remain more softly contrasted. Also, the composition isn't straight, and the slanted walls in the background take away from the overall impression.
011 has delicate colours, and if only the composition had been a tad better (for now, the texture of the wall is a bit skewed; perfectly horisontally straight would be better, and also there's too little air above her head, making her sort of crammed into the scene) it would be a very good shot.
012 is quite cool because it has a lot of attitude and personality.

Over all, the saturation/contrast is a bit too high. Most scenes have too strong illumination, and a soft-box or a more over-cast weather would be preferable. I don't know if you have cranked up the contrast in PS or something, but you should try to remedy it somehow.
The graininess isn't a problem to me, many photographs use films and lenses with a high amount of natural grain, and I'm not a typical quality-freak.

The girls, regardless of their physical appearence -which I find an irrelevant discussion - has good acting skills and expressions, and you should utilise this more to stage interesting scenes and situations. The technical quality of the shots are not good enough to make a model portfolio, so be easy on the sensual kind of posing.

Anyhow, a neat gallery, the theme is interesting and the models seem very relaxed and easy to work with.

[LGM]

Thank you all for your feedback. And in reply to everyone:

Farlander: No, you cannot.

Krysis: The thing is, the blurriness bugs me... Which is why I believe I've overdone the sharpening to counteract this. But then I realize, most film pictures aren't incredibly sharp unless it is the goal of the photographer.

Chicky: True, I didn't pick the girls out for their outrageous looks... They wee just willing to come out with me. As it was nighttime, I didn't have much lighting to go from. The bridge we were in had sweet OLED lights, though.. And they were stuck on blue for our duration there. That's why they're all BLUE!

Guybrush: Yup.. 003 is definitely a fav.

ildu: The girls were actually rather natural. The ONLY photos where they posed for themselves are photos 010 and 012. And yes, I am using a digital camera. I have an SLR, but I am experimenting with a new medium right now. Film is much too expensive for my current financial state. But does it come off that I don't plan my angles very well? Because I do! That's one thing I'm crazy about. As for 010, I wish I could fix that blur but I don't know how without funking up everything. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about grain, that's just a natural thing. But depth blurring... I never thought of doing that. Thanks!

DanClarke: Bingo. The camera is about 4 years old. The lens is quite nice, but I only get 3.2 Megapixels from the camera. The CCD chip is lovely, though, and captures colors rather naturally.

Andail: Yes. I saw that bridge from that angle and right away I set the tripod up on the ground and had the girl stand in front of it. They were very easy to work with, indeed. As for 010, agreed... The highlight is horrible. That's just me being careless. But that ain't sun, buddy.. That's a bright ceiling light shining in the night. To be honest, the shot wasn't even planned... I took it accidentally. I think the texture in 011 is off because I used a heal brush on it. And she does look squashed.. The original has a little more above her... Don't know why I cropped it out. Yes, 012 is probably one of the most emotional pictures I've taken. I quite enjoy it.

Yes, the technical quality really borks me. And mostly it's my fault, due to the fact that I was editing the pictures around midnight. No need to worry, as I am starting from the originals again and I am much more happy with how they are turning out the second time around.

While you wait, please check out an earlier shoot (which I believe produced some better shots. Perhaps I need more practice for night shooting)

A Day With Jimmy and Betsy

[Fizzii]

Your photos definitely show creativity.

What I'd usually do is take several shots of the same subject, at different exposures and angles. You may end up with plenty of lesser-quality pics, but generally you'll get at least one or two that are really good. Dusk might be possibly a better time to take photos, but taking photos near bridges is also good since there's some light.

Also, watch the way the light falls onto the models' faces. In a couple of them - 004, 010, the light is very strong on their noses. It might make for interesting results if part of their face were lit up as well.

And, you probably intended for them to look at the camera for most of the photos, but I feel there's just a bit too much awareness of the camera. They're trying too hard to pose for the lens. Their personalities might be brought out a bit more if it weren't so obvious they were posing for a photograph, adding a sense of mystery/allure/whatever to the photo ... But that may be just my opinion.

Some links:
http://www.finetuning.com/articles/571-tips-for-night-and-low-light-photography.html
http://www.travelphoto.net/photos/english/photo-tips/html/night-photography.html
http://malektips.com/digital_night_photography_help_and_tips.htmlhttp://www.rlrouse.com/photography-at-night.html

With your second bunch of photos - I like the symmetric composition of 004, though the image is sloping down ever so slightly to the right. 001 has cool casual poses, but it would be nice if the wall was lined up straight as well. I like 006 for the composition and poses as well. The dead centered composition of 002 doesn't really work for me, and while the reflections are cool, they fight with the main subject. Maybe composition by thirds, or another angle to the shot...

Anyway, some very nice photos there

[LGM]

My camera DOES have all these manual settings that I seem to be shunning.. Why am I not setting my own arpeture and shutter speeds?!?! Perhaps that is my plight. I'm now sure that my camera has been switching to 800 speed in low light, hence the graininess!

Edit: And as far as models looking into the camera. Yes, I was a little obsessed at telling them to do that. It is not their fault, it's mine. They usually wanted to look away.

[TheYak]

It does appear as though the camera's upping the ISO level to compensate.  The aperature adjustment might work wonders.  Excellent framing of the shots, by the way.  There's certainly a different look to the shots than mere candid people capturing delivers.  You've got an eye, all that's left is the equipment (or tweaking what you have).  As a cheap, decent night cam, you might consider the Canon A75 or A85.  Really, I've yet to find an inexpensive night cam that does dim lighting very well. 

[LGM]

http://www.lilgryphmaster.com/shoot27/new/

Okay, I'm done tweaking now, I just can't get the quality to look any better. So I'm moving on to the next project and I'm going to try to shoot them properly and not depend on Photoshop to fix everything.

By the way, I've been getting offers recently to take "Senior Pictures." Getting your senior pictures done is a common thing for kids to do around here. Seniors (meaning 12th graders) get their pictures taken by a professional and then, at the end of the year, they hand them out to people so they will never be forgotten.

Basically, it's big stuff. People pay mucho bucks to get them done. So if people are wanting ME to do it... Either they're really cheap and would rather have me do it, or they think I'm capable of it.

I hope that I can learn enough to do such a thing. It's certainly tempting to start taking money for my photography work.