flr666 said:
Anyhow... this is the shot that got me the job... Girls, it can take years.. but always remember - it can come down to one shot.
This "One shot" that it came down to sucks.
One light - a 'half light'
The composition is shit. If you're going to cut off toes in the composition, you may as well cut out her whole foot! And just in case you decide to take me up on that last bit of advice, remember to never crop at joints (clearly, judging by the rest of the images in that tumblr thread, you need a reminder of this as well).
Your DOF leaves something to be desired. I also notice quite a bit of noise in the image that suggests you were cranking the ISO at around 1600 (just a swag, there) which in a low light situation is just fine... sacrifices have to be made.
But at such a high ISO... you might consider bumping your shutter speed up to at least 200 to avoid that distracting motion blur on her heels. That is, of course, assuming you've opened up your aperture a bit to compensate first.
The lighting is also suspect here. My first instinct is to say that this is window light with the sun coming in nearly horizontally through the window.
However, if you did indeed use a 6'x6' light modifier for this as you mentioned earlier in the thread... it was over kill... and judging by the harsh shadows, was either very under powered (which might also explain your need for such a high ISO setting) or very far away from the model (which would negate your statement of having to work in a small space). You could have produced much better results with a much smaller light source which would have also saved you some space in that tiny room you were working in. Hell, you could have produced better results by just bouncing a bare strobe off the ceiling.
So let me wrap this up a bit for you:
*concentrate on your composition. Check your corners, check the limbs, check focus.
*High ISO in low light is acceptable... but adjusting your ISO should be your last option. Open up your aperture first... then compensate for motion blur with a higher shutter speed. If you still don't have enough light to properly expose your image... then bump up your ISO... or just wait until your model has stopped moving to press the shutter release.
*Use a smaller light source, closer to your model, to produce softer shadows and less dramatic fall off. Also bump up your flash exposure so that you can lower your ISO. Remember that the size of your light source in relation to the distance to your subject can be compensated easily... you don't have to use a huge modifier! And use of that huge modifier is negated when you back it away from your model.
*When providing a "test" image to the model, put a huge ass "PROOF" watermark across it to dissuade her from using it on her Tumblr... Never let a "test" shot hit the open market. When using a "test" shot for an avatar... expect to get some shit for it. Do some touch-ups, color correction, exposure corrections, get rid of that ugly orange-this-is-a-toy-gun-don't-shoot-me barrel...
*Last but foremost... And this pretty well proves that none of the above information means jack shit to either you or the person that actually took these pictures... Do not claim to be a professional photographer and not expect that someone will check the metadata on the image itself only to find that it was shot with a Canon PowerShot A3100 IS (point and shoot available for $199.68 on Amazon if any of the ladies in this thread are considering a new camera).
I will not provide you with a sample of my work... I don't have anything to prove. I shall sleep soundly tonight with the knowledge that my highly sought after photographic skills satisfy my clients a great deal and do not embarrass either them or me.