My New York Institute of Photography instructor, Walter Karling, returned his critique my work on Unit 4 portraiture last week. That post can be found here. To be honest, my execution of Unit 4 was a bit perfunctory and I think Walter's critique reflected that. That's for me to own.

With Photo 1, a portrait using window light, Walter thought it was little soft, with focus being sharper on Christine's further (her right) eye rather than on the nearer eye, a no-no in portrait photography. Overall, the lighting was good according to Walter. I have to agree with Walter regarding the defficiencies in this shot, but I still like it very much because it is more than just a picture of a person; I think some of her personality comes through.

Photo 2 was a more formal portrait using at least two lighting sources. Fortunately, my neighbor needed a shot for her business and so I set up a fairly elaborate (for me) lighting scheme to get this done. I had to shoot over 100 images to get one that I thought was workable! Of course, the one I liked was not the one she did! While I was happy with it, Walter did not like the way the side flash caught the tip of Athena's nose and would have preferred positioning of the strobe more at the 45 degree angle to her right. No comment on the B/W rendering. I was glad to just have that particular shoot over!

In Photo 3, the assignment was an environmental portrait and frankly I just selected an image taken during a recent trip to Mexico. The reason I took the shot was less a portrait and more about the morning light streaming through the draperies. Walter liked the overall effect, but would have cropped to a square, making the shot more about Christine than the light. Given my confusion about the subject (Christine or the morning light), I am happy with it as is, but I take Walter's point: If it's a portrait, emphasize your subject! Incidentally, my dad would have done this differently (better) too. He would have oriented her to face into the room and he found the painting on the left wall distracting. I certainly get that.

Photo 4 was kind of a "no brainer" as I caught my neighbor's daughter in an unguarded moment. Walter thought I had met the requirements to photograph a young child. He also liked the late afternoon light and thought the crop below the knee was appropriate. She's certainly a cutie!

Photo 5 was to be a group shot and while I like this photo, it was somewhat difficult to get excited about the exercise. Maybe it was just the holidays ;) Walter said a surprising thing, however, that he usually shoots these types of photos with a straight on flash because it was easier to capture the types of spontaneous interactions that are seen here. His feeling was that capturing the dynamics of the moment outweighed the need to have modeling light (light that reveals the three dimensional texture of a subject, usually from an oblique angle). I'm just glad the entire exercise is behind me! I did learn new respect for photographers that produce high quality studio portraits as well as poignant candids. Most of my portrait shots, if they were good, have been mostly lucky, I think. If you want to see larger images, click this link.

On to Unit 5, Photojournalism! The assignments cover sports and documentary photography and although I was the Sports Editor for my high school yearbook and captured and evaluated hundreds of B/W images back then, I must say I am not looking forward to Unit 5. I think I am learning that professional photography, like any career, requires dedication, hard work, and discipline in order to be respected as a high quality practitioner. I shouldn't be surprised, but I am discovering that my passion lies towards landscape or more spontaneous shooting though I certainly do not eschew dedication, hard work, and discipline! I will stay the course.