bridal - head and shoulders

I like the white flower, white pearls and the white gown idea.  The broad lighting may widen her face but it tends to make here nose look very wide. Very fashion like image!

It is not a head and shoulders or a 3/4 length view-  she is truncated below the bust line and the arm dangles and is cut off.

There is little or no shadow detail in the hair and very little separation from the background. The image seems slightly to dark and overly contrasty. 

Ideas:

1. Try a dark vignette to soften that cut off look at the bottom of the composition.

2.  Bring the hands and perhaps the flowers back into the composition to provide a better base.

3.  If you want to show the entire collar motif, make a 3/4 view or tighten up for a real head and shoulders image.

4.  Make a lighter image- if there is too much density, the shadows may be blocked up.

Hope this helps!   Ed

There is really nothing wrong with broad lighting.  In this case, however it does tend to wined the nose.  Short lighting would be a better choice.  In the case of a narrow face, short lighting can still be used as long as it is not too short where it bisects or splits the face.  Some times a form-fill helps- you can use a reflector on the some side as the main light to wrap the lighting around the subject a bot more.  When yo you analyze a face, oftentimes there is a decision you have to make based on the lesser of two evils.. Do you want to flatter the nose line or broaden the face.  In this situation O would have gone for the short lighting with a reflector because her face is not that narrow and that problem can be solved with the lighting arrangement I have described.

Best regards,  Ed

Susie,

Like Ed S., I like this image a lot . . but why the serious look?

Just a few little points:  Take a look at her left shoulder.  See the nice backlight (separation light) there?  You have a little of this on the left side of the top of her head, but it might have been better to turn her back more toward the sunlight and get that separation in her hair. 

I don't think that this looks more than just a little bit dark. 

Very good idea to get the light off of the camera.  I have recently started to shoot with less and less flash outdoors after years of saying, "You gotta use flash . . ."  There's always more to consider and more to learn!

Ed