i believe this is good, not a lot of shadows on her face; i would be interested in knowing why you think it is a failure. good details, right down to the reflection in her earring and as mentioned, her eye-lashes.
Not seeing the epic fail at, I would be very happy with this shot if I had taken it it or if I was the subject. What is it about the shot you don't like? Just so we understand where you feel you failed.
Nope, not an epic fail in my opinion - love the catch lights in the eyes too. I think you could probably do without the vignetting, but that may just be a matter of personal opinion. It just seems to take away from the subject for me:)
all the references to portraiture say that you have to focus on the eyes, mainly, and that's what i did. but as you can see, the "far" eye (her left) is perfectly in focus. her near eye (the right) is not. i don't know but i just couldn't get my portraits sharp enough. i know i need more practice and i can't just nail anything all at once. this portrait thing is quite frustrating. but thank you for your comments and encouragement; i do appreciate such lovely support.
Well Vikki I think you did a great job. As you know I do not take a lot of portrait shots so I would not be the best person to give you advice in this area. Just keep it up and soon enough you will get to the place where you are happy with your results
@summerfield well I certainly get that frustration re portraits. I saw the technique6 challenge on the 4th and thought "ok that's it, this is where you need practice (tons of it) & improvement (tons of that too) so no other shots but portrait attempts" what happened - didn't pick up the camera for days, tried selfies and even photos of my dog because I didn't have a model available and failed miserably. I have such a hang up about posing.
@sianipops - thank you, nia. i have been putting this undertaking for this challenge. i think my problem, too, was that we only have at least 10 minutes to do this. while i can take a break anytime, this girl can't. she works in the mailroom for our supplier, she's not really our employee so i didn't want her to be in trouble with her boss. she can't stay after hours because she has a son to pick from the babysitter. thanks again.
Vikki, you know I don't know the first thing about portraiture, but I do know about aperture ;-) You shot this with your 50mm with an aperture value of 2.2. That gives you a very narrow DOF. You also have less DOF in front of your point of focus (the left eye) than behind the focus point so all of this contribute to the softness on the side of the mode's face cloest to the camera. You want a large aperture (small number) to blur the background when you shoot portraist, but you also need a small enough aperture (large number) to get the whole face in focus. The only way you can do this is to try out different apertures and experiment. DOF is also dependent on the focal length of you lens (tele lenses have less DOF than wide lenses). Try an aperture around f.4 and focus on the eye closest to the camera.
Sorry, I got a bit carried away there ;-) What I ment to say was that this shot is not a failure at all... it is quite nice actually.
@jsw0109 - thank you, jeff.
@maggiemae - thank you, maggiemae.
@claireuk - thank you, claire.
@aurorajane - thank you, aj.
@catsmeowb - thank you, camille.
@sianipops - thank you, nia.
@lafish - thank you, laurie.
@dh - thank you, dh.
@quietpurplehaze - thank you, hazel.
@westcoastwallis - thank you, paula.
@atooner - thank you, amy.
all the references to portraiture say that you have to focus on the eyes, mainly, and that's what i did. but as you can see, the "far" eye (her left) is perfectly in focus. her near eye (the right) is not. i don't know but i just couldn't get my portraits sharp enough. i know i need more practice and i can't just nail anything all at once. this portrait thing is quite frustrating. but thank you for your comments and encouragement; i do appreciate such lovely support.
@eniaral - :-) thank you, laraine.
Sorry, I got a bit carried away there ;-) What I ment to say was that this shot is not a failure at all... it is quite nice actually.