My New Profile Picture: Asking For Criticism

[Hunter_C]

This picture (of me) is taken in front of a mirror at the toilet of a hotel room (I chose the place because they had black tiles). I mainly take macro photos, so I am a newbie at portrait photography and I hope that I could learn from your comments. Anyone willing to give some advice in the comments? Thanks!

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"You must strive to find your own voice, 'cause the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all." —— Dead Poets Society

 

[jbf]

I keep a gallery of my favorite photos. Several of them are minimalist photos where most of the frame has no detail. Your photo reminds me of those photos. It is very good.

The photos of this type that I like the best are ones that when they are first seen, they look like simple line drawings. The essence of the subject is carefully highlighted so that the subject is quickly recognizable with very little detail. I have a great example, but I don't have the photographer's name to give credit so I am not going to post it. Hopefully, my description makes sense. Think about what is essential to show to the viewer so that they will see that this is a picture of a photographer. Use the light to show only the important lines that will cause the viewer to recognize the form. Easier said than done, I know.

I bring this up because you are close to what I described. This is just a suggestion in case you want to experiment more with this style. One other minor suggestion is that if you show less detail, it will be better to crop a little closer to bring out the detail.

I hope this helps,

jbf

 

[gordonpritchard]

Maybe flip the image horizontally? (Canon is backwards)

 

[Hunter_C]

Thank you for your advice and the effort put into it, I really like your summarization, and I did think that the eye (really important part of the picture to me) is a little too dark, so for my portfolio, I cropped it so the eye is more visible.

 

[Klaus dk]

Except for the hat, it's a rather generic picture of a photographer, and since the eye is only barely visible, it's not quite what you intended. Even with the eye, it would be generic.

So, in other words, what you want to show the world is you're a Canon shooter with a hat. IMHO, there's not a lot of personality in that, but to each his own.

Since you asked.

 

[Bob 1]

Greetings Hunter... Well, if you wanted to portray yourself as a Canon Cyclops, congratulation, you nailed it :-D BTW, how do you like the M50? I picked up a refurbished M50 from Canon and keep it with me wherever I travel. If you get a chance, post some of your Macro shots. Thanks & HAGD!

 

[Hunter_C]

Originally I did not have the hat on, but then my hair looked bad probably because of the lack of detail in the hair. So......I had to put the hat on. Do you have any advice so that I could make my hair look better? Thanks in advance.

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"You must strive to find your own voice, 'cause the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all." —— Dead Poets Society

 

[Hunter_C]

Personally, I really like the M50, it does everything I want it to, the AF is one of the stuff I found really good (because I shoot macro constantly at night and the AF is fast even then) and I usually use it with an EF-M macro lens except when going on a vacation.

Here is a macro photo I posted on DP Review: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/63536813

And the rest of my workflow is here (the landscapes were taken when I first started photography) :

https://gurushots.com/hunter_c/photos

This is one of my best shots (that's part of a 20RMB bill) :

https://gurushots.com/photo/097222061a67450418d3ff3c981cb376

 

[Hunter_C]

It was a good idea! The only reason I didn't do that is to let you guys figure out how I took this picture

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"You must strive to find your own voice, 'cause the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all." —— Dead Poets Society

 

[By standing on the Shoulders of Giants]

Not inspiring. U can do better.

 

[Hunter_C]

I'd be really grateful if you could go a little in detail. On which aspect is it not inspiring? And how could I do better? Thanks!

 

[Klaus dk]

Originally I did not have the hat on, but then my hair looked bad probably because of the lack of detail in the hair. So......I had to put the hat on. Do you have any advice so that I could make my hair look better? Thanks in advance.

Sorry, I'm not a hairdresser and I haven't seen your hair. I just attempted to open your eyes to the effect of you photo.

This may seem harsh, but I don't know you and can't possibly guess what you're aiming to do.

I see it this way: you're the art director, photographer, model, stylist, mua and lighting director of this shot, so you figure it out.

Good luck and good light.

 

[Bob 1]

Thanks Hunter for your response... BTW, you have a very nice collection of shots in your Guru gallery! Take care and continued joy with photography