greyflash said:
Holly is my granddaughter and just recently became engaged. They asked me to take a few photo's of them. Comment always welcome.
Gordon :
Another beautiful woman in your family (recalling the shots of Diana). Holly's quite the lovely young woman in her own right.
I guess I'd comment that the first two shots do indeed use her fiance as a "prop", much as you noted. Nothing wrong with that for the bride-to-be's family announcement, at least traditionally, but I'd not have had his back to the camera in Shot 1, nor had his head so inclined in Shot 2. The loss of eye contact with Steve in both shots detracts from them.
Shot 3 succeeds, aside from the beauty of your granddaughter with her handsome fiance, because the background is non-distracting.
Shot 4 has a shrub and a tree "growing" out of Holly's head, and a bench "flowing" out of Steve's ear. This could be fixed in PS, I suppose, or in shooting this you could have gone for a much shallower DOF and perhaps lost the foliage in the bokeh.
Objects intruding into the subject is a common problem in a "dense background" area. I've done this for years, starting with a thoroughly stunning date who I photographed with a flagpole sprouting from the crown of her head in my high-school years. I always have to consciously check the surrounding areas of my shots to avoid this. It's a struggle sometimes, because of the obvious background "clutter".
Of course, you could always follow Gil's fine example and get the 85mm f/1.4 for the wedding shots !!! :lol: Seriously, though, I've found that I can't count on simple DOF blur or good bokeh to make the difference, even if I use the defocus control on my 105mm f/2 DC lens to the maximum detent position.
There's a reason so many wedding photographers (and wedding announcement photogs) shoot in a small number of set locations or want to use the studio. Where our wildlife shots benefit by seeing the surroundings, portraiture sometimes needs more simplicity.
Congratulations to Holly and Steve, BTW.
John P.
P.S. A friend asked me to shoot photos of her with her Weimeraner dog for a Valentine's Day card a bit back. We shot them inside her rather smallish house because of less then good outdoors conditions. I struggled throughout the shooting to get her "separated" from the background, and I was never ultimately pleased with the results, although she liked them. But she wasn't terribly thrilled with my offhand remark about being better at other types of photography when I said, "If you were an elk, I could make you look beautiful !". Fortunately, she's a
good friend...
