Well they make a good 'act'. Mean and brooding sort of comes to mind. It's much more powerful and dramatic than the original colour version. Bet these two 'shy' people had real good fun acting these shots up. Ha!

Ha, this is great. Given that the effect was intentional I like this one the best of the three so far.

I'm biased I know, but I'm loving your Bahamas series.

Great bit of ham! Have you any of them giggling between shots? ;-)

It´s always amazing what someone can make out of a picture that looks not that great ut of the camera.

I like. I really like how the water came out. I just think the figures are too dark for my taste. I really like the tone/detail in the skin, tho'. Just too dark is all.

For me this is too posed, and after looking at the original image there is definitely too much contrast in this edit, especially the background becoming so blown out, Fiona looks beautiful in the original image, but a little freaky in the edit in my opinion. On the plus side, I am enjoying these images Dave, you have done a great job, and to be quite honest i'm a bit jealous! :)

Nice one Dave...though if you allow me to be picky I would have preferred if you had the negative space on the otherside where Fiona is backing us. Otherwise a tighter crop would suffice. I don't think I like the negative space on the right the more I look at it. I hope I've not gone too far with this comment!

Howdy Dave, since you posted the original picture to this, I went ahead and had a little fun with it. I thought you might like to see it. Let me know what you think, even though it wasn't what you were going for.

Ryan and Fiona Edited by Nate

This is the best one for me Dave, although I do find two things a little distracting. Of course it's only my opinion and I''m going to get you back for all those times you said to me 'I would have just...'

Firstly the hotspots on the faces and in particular the girls shoulder. They are distracting and in particular the circular hotspot takes away the emphasis of the models face.

Secondly, the girls fingers on the guys shoulders are destroying what otherwise might be a nice shape.

The blown background works for me though.

I did prefer the more natural shot in #2, they don't look terribly comfortable in this one. Technically though it's a good photo, i like the high contrast. None with colour though? Must've been some beautiful skies and clear water surely?

Some really constructive criticism today isn't there, much of which I wouldn't have thought of. I think I agree with Jide about putting them on the other side of frame, John about the fingers (get re-touching). I like the high contrast though, don't mind the blown BG or the hotspots, I might even crank it up some more.

I know this is probably anathema but this would look great on b/w film, perhaps a 400 pushed a stop or two. Your EXIF says no flash! Hmm, wheres that light coming from then? Looks like on-camera-flash to me. Ring flash maybe or get the flash off camera.

nice subtle plug for the tutorials... isn't it b/w conversion month? ;-)

Sorting through pics for my own (future) site and I came across this one. Kind of a similar shot (technically) but with the flash off camera. I'm not so sure now... Anyway, that's enough geekery for one day.

Really amazing what you can achieve in the post processing. The difference between the images are huge.

Thanks all.

Jennifer: yes, and I may put one up - I haven't decided yet.

Jide: you're probably right about the negative space.

Nate: oddly enough one of my original edits looked very similar to your version but I ended up going with the black and white.

John: yep, you're right.

Mark P: yes, but I couldn't get a colour version of this one that I liked.

andyshon: yep, a bit of grain wouldn't hurt this image, and you're quite right, I did use flash (that's the problem with manually entering EXIF data). As for your other comment: I like the image you linked.

i would suggest you stick to landscapes. your landscapes are amazing, but i have to say your portraits just aren't at the same level.