Pictures with underwatermodel (after your feedback)...

Well we did another try yesterday evening. Pink and white were the colors.

I had a 3 by 4.5 m black cloth as background. Fixed with weight at the border of the swimming pool and at bottom. Well, I used a 15mm lens to be reasonably close to the model because of the dust and dirt in our swimming pool. Framing the model (with floating clothes) became somewhat of an issue. I had to get very close and the there is of course the barrel effect...

Furthermore Evelyne has problems with her buoyancy. Hence we forced to have a weight belt or weights around the ankles. Based upon the feedback on this website, we tried to get some more floating clothes. It did work very well because the problems mentioned above. But it was a good learning experience.

Lesson learned:

1) I'm going to enlarge to black cloth to 4.5 and 4.5 meters.

2) I'll use my 18-70mm lens next time.

This one is my favorite of this shoot...

Job #1 is getting the pool clean.

this photo would really benefit from White Balance ... white bikini top should make it easy to do

Much better second attempt. I'm glad you're having to go through all the same learning experiences I had to go through :-)

I agree that the photo could use some white balancing, and you can also lighten the mid-tones. I would also work w/ Evelyne to help her relax her facial muscles a bit as she is very much pursing her mouth.

Another tip is that with portraits, you really need to watch the shadows around peoples' eyes so that they don't look too tired.

Cheers

James

Much better second attempt. I'm glad you're having to go through all the same learning experiences I had to go through :-)

 

I agree that the photo could use some white balancing, and you can also lighten the mid-tones. I would also work w/ Evelyne to help her relax her facial muscles a bit as she is very much pursing her mouth.

 

Another tip is that with portraits, you really need to watch the shadows around peoples' eyes so that they don't look too tired.

 

Cheers

James

Thanks for the feedback.

The WB setting was a deliberate choice. The bikini is not white but somewhat creamy. I shot at 4800 Kelvin (Ikelite flashes) and later added changed the setting in Camera Raw to flash and I added some orange in dual tone split. After that, I did add some orange and red in Camera Raw because I wanted to avoid the pale ("dead corps") skin she had last time. Evelyne has a quit pale skin. But based on your feedback I have exaggerated, so I changed colorbalance to become more neutral (but not completly). Thanks.

On the eyes shadows. I would guess that the flash on the right was too high. Would you agree?

I planned to go into to the water with 1 flash on the camera and extra flash on a tripod (using an optical slave), but the tripod broke before I could take one picture. Do you have some advice on how to position (and use) the two flashes to avoid shadows around the eyes.

I recommend large diffusers (light modifiers) like shoot-thru umbrellas.

Cheers

James

I like some of this stuff, James has some really nice images, but to be totally honest I find her a bit scary.. No offense meant.

Blimey don't hold back !!!!!

Dive safe

DeanB