[BobEdens]

These two are a my favorites (right now) from Saturday's shoot.

Liz


Cindy

[Benji]

These two are a my favorites (right now) from Saturday's shoot.

Liz


Cindy


Bob, the hands are not feminine, they look like fists.

Ben

[Marian Murdoch]

Bob, the hands are not feminine, they look like fists.

I've always seen the women Bob shoots as tough women, so the strong hands fit in perfectly with his shoots. I love the curve of her left hand in the first one. The second one has pursed, tight lips, which says "determination" to me, so her hands also work in my opinion. What I don't like is the fur going almost into her nostril in the second one.

I love, love the eyes in the first one! Nicely done. Oooo...and the lighting on her face. Look at that beautiful highlight you've given her on her lips!

[Ginnypenny]

I am going to agree with Benji on the hands.  I think a more classic approach to the hand position would make these images that much better.

I LOVE the lighting on the first one, it's really well done.  The light in the eyes and the shadows and highlights on the face are great.  The exposure and pose (except the picky thing with the hands) are really good.

The second one is almost as good.  I think the light was a little too low.  I am judging by both the catchlights and the shadow from her nose.  Other than that it's a great image too.

Good job overall.   

[Mike Hodgson]

No need to repeat about the hands Bob, I do agree with Both views, however, I'm leaning towards the classic as well.

Let's move on to your lights.
Think of your lights as a bullseye on a dart board, the red and the green. The red being the hot spot "Umbra" and the green being your softlight "Penumbra"
In image #2 the umbra is harsh on the hands with a slight fall off on the face. By adjusting your umbrella's height and angle if used, the penumbra "Feathering of light" would be eveident.

I think #1 is much closer, maybe slightly higher to just see the butterfly, however, maybe a form of a loop lighting would make her nose somewhat narrower.

Good approach on the portraits.

[BobEdens]

Thanks everyone!!

Marian:
The top photo, Liz is my makeup artist. She will be pleased to be called "strong woman" being 5 foot 1 and just over 90 lbs she doesn't get that a lot. Cindy is a 44 year old triathlete, very strong woman.

Mike:
Still working on the lighting. I shot several with hot light and really like the way they came out. I'm trying to evolve into using only speedlight strobes so in studio or location my light is always the same. (long way to go there)

I didn't really like their hands either.
Classic hand pose while holding the collar up against your face.. Are you guys going to make me look it up? [grin] I wanted the hands in the photos holding the collar up to frame the face, how would you guys have accomplished that look?

[Ginnypenny]

Benji actually had a great example up a long time ago.  You know the rule about photographing the sides of the hands.  Let me see if I can find an example...  I would look up Monte Zucker's site or something, but the hands holding up the collar are probably not something he did regularly.

I'll look, I could show you in person, but I am horrible at explaining.

[Ginnypenny]

K, not a great example as she is only holding the collar with one hand:

http://pro.corbis.com/search/Enlargement.aspx?CID=isg&mediauid=2085DEE4-8FE0-4465-ABCC-74725670C782

This is a basic idea, you can suit it to what you are doing, having them hold the collar more agressively or higher, with both hands, whatever.

Edited to add:  Huh, there are a lot of bad examples out there, here is another semi decent on, not great:
http://www.fotosearch.com/GLW205/gws127025/