thank you for your opinion, Arbitrary '=) I don't know which "Lipcia" you're talking about, but I like all of them better than "Caroleta"! ;-) I think one of the few downsides of Flickr is that the resized photos are some times over sharped...
Tomorrow I think I'm going to shoot something different, during daylight, hopefully in the rain. I'll post here when I upload '=D

Well, I gave it a brief overlooking because I'm not going to look at 200 pictures right now. (I'm at work )
Obviously when you're dealing with portraits and people there are some factors which the photographer cannot control (I'm sorry, but I don't look like a model myself). Some of the people in your photos are just not aesthetic enough in my taste to allow the viewer an objective judgement of the art. That's the problem with portraits. Choosing to work with such a "controversial" subject requires great confidence, but it shows you have real passion towards your camera and subjects.

I liked the photo of Vivi and Katoka a lot, as it shows, to my interpretation a "blurred" image of love and caring, along with the stream of lightning in the background, showing passion and lust. The image of Dandan is also quit appealing to my eyes. I liked the pictures of Renan, Mae and Natasha, as they are simplistic and set on a naturally beautiful backdrop.

I think the picture that I liked best from the 5-6 pages I looked at was of Natasha and Vinicius on what appears to be a train. The very confident and outward personality of Natasha, clashing against the simpleton and partly unkept (but in a good way) look of Vinicius. The backdrop of seats gives the inclination of a journey, a sort of methaphore for the road the two have made in their supposed relationship (that's what the picture implies to me)... the road that brings them together from both sides of the world (and their opposite position on the personality spectrum).

The pictures of the Orquestra Imperial really capture the essence of a lively performance. I know that as a performer myself, and it really brings me back to my band's show from a week ago. I can totally feel the surreal experience of being up on stage and doing your magic... all the while not really comprehending the situation. Performing is really something that makes you unaware of your actions, and lets your intuition propel you to give energetic and emotional shows.

All in all, good work! In my eyes, I would appreciate a bit less "digitized" pictures, and a bit more simplistic and minimalistic portraits. Also, as in the picture of Dandan, let everyone emphasize their most aesthetic features (in reference to Dandan's eyes).

Kind of unsettling feel I got when I went through the first few pages of the photographs. As seec77 mentioned, I usually prefer photographs that are more minimalastic but have a depth of characterization in them.

I have learnt one thing in Potrait Photgraphy. An amature can take great photographs of people, only if they are are extremely odd or really beautiful in an average sense. That brings out the character very easily. It takes a real professional to take great photographs of average or common looking people. (Example, me )

Anyway, those were my - as they say - two cents, and the decision is yours to make on the style you approach.

I think that a good portrait is one that really defines someone as an indidual. It tells a story and reveals something about the subject's character, personality or life. So when taking a photographic portarait I think that you should think about what exactly makes them who they are and call attention to that. A portrait may not even require to have a person's face in focus as long as it tells something about them. Imagine a photograph focusing in on an elderly persons hands. The face might be completely blurred , but the old cracked hands might reveal that that person worked very hard, maybe on a farm his whole life. When you take a picture try framing/cropping it so that t really focuses on what the photois about.
Let's use the following photo for an example:


What if you xoomed in on the action of the photograph and cropped it so that so the fist and the mouth took up the entire photo. By eliminating unneeded information for the picture I think that it makes the action and focus of the picture more clear. You don't need to show someones entire face for the viewer to know that someone is getting hity in the face.

Regarding the broght colors, I think that I would refer to see somewhat more natural color or black and white.
If there is a specific image that the unnatural color might help, then use it, but it seems like it is being used on many pictures without any real purpose.

Those are my suggestions.

I love portraits photography. And I think that from each "normal" person you could have a very nice picture. Of course, sometimes you have to try several times (sometimes several tens of times).
When the portrait is nice, I'm proud to show it.
If not, I simply hide it somewhere on my own PC, waiting for the next occasion of taking a nice picture.

Nice pics, i noticed that you modify some of them like changing its colors, does you do it with some software or you do it directly with your camera?

BTW, please send a big kiss to your beautiful sister Aninha

Best regards,

Hey seec77 '=)
It's funny that you mention that is hard photographing people who don't look very good, and other people on this board have agreed with you. I don't even think of it as a challenge, for me it is indifferent wether the subect of the portrait is beautiful or not.
I did spend about 18 months photographing only beautiful men though. I went out on the streets and I photographed the strangers that caught my eye. That was very difficult not only because I felt shy but also because many times the guys looked really bad in the pictures. When I do portraits, I don't care if the person will look beautiful, but that was the whole point when photographing those men on the streets. I think in the end it's really all about the photographer, and not the models.

On the other hand, you have no idea how easy it is to photograph Natasha '=) She is utterly beautiful, and she always looks DIFFERENT because she wears different clothes and makeup and everything... There are pictures of her with her teeth painted black, and even then she looks amazing.

I'm glad you liked the photos of Orquestra Imperial, I was just learning how to photograph concerts. Too bad I stopped there, I still want and need to learn more '=/

Those recent pink photographs that I have been posting have very little to no digitized colours on them actually. I get to that tone only by putting pink candy wrapper in front of the flash! '=) It is a moment I have been going through for several weeks now, and I'm loving it! '=D I want to try different colours.

Update -> well, I guess I can address this to everyone that posted, not only to seec77... Specially regarding the colours



This post has been edited by bad-and-ugly: Oct 17 2006, 06:16 PM

This is pretty cool. I noticed that most of them are of people (looks like friends of yours) smiling or laughing. I would like to see more varied emotions and backgrounds.

Sorry if you have lots of other different stuff, I wasn't about to click through 50 pages of photos

Also, I understand that the color flash is a style, but it would also be cool to see black and white, or less saturated color. Just a thought.

Really good overall!

Well, bad-and-ugly I'm with you in this! I really don't care what conventional photography books say. I really believe that exceptional portraits can be taken with any Individual. Most of the award winning Human Portraits I have come across had ordinary, common men/women on them.

I find your photographs extremely interesting. Simply because you're trying something different. Different than most other photographers I've come across. Putting candy paper on the flash was quite innovative(May be many people use it; I'm not aware of ity though;-) Also the angles and postures in which you've captured the snaps were quite innovative. And yes, I think the models(Just a term for the people who appear on your portraits) you had were really great. They had given pretty good poses. Most of them were very cheerful. That's enough to make a snap look great. I didn't really find that pink colouring great. But on some of the snaps of Viviani it looks cool.

I went through 6 pages.... They were all quite innovative.

There are million photographers who follow conventions, very few who are innovative. Be glad you belong to minority! I'm sure with time your abilities will only refine and you move further towards perfection.

All the best mate!

This post has been edited by SP Rao: Oct 19 2006, 05:12 AM

Ugh! .. I really had to see your photos to make a post count for myself.

Just Kidding.. The photos look great and the lightings effects were strange.