I'm assuming that I'm "That dude" so I will react to this.
First of, thanks for taking the time to write this, you were right, it is quite lengthy
So, first things first. I assume this is meant as criticism for this picture:
As you said, if you have a render with characters, you show them usually from the front. This is, because we are used to seeing other humans from the front, if they give you attention. And this is usually the intent of an image, the maker want's the viewer to be interacting by the contents of the image to create some kind of attachment.
There are a few other tricks in the image to guide the viewer to the main point of the image. The main thing is mostly the one, which is in the best light, so you see it the best, while not being distracted by the surroundings. Thats what spotlights are for. This is why, for example, the exhibits in a museum are in very bright spotlights, while the rest of the room is mostly fairly dim, even if the architecture of the room itself might be very interesting.
Another trick is the (in the picture above not really) subtle lens flare at the edges. Human eyes like edges and hard angles, and with toning them down, the point of interest can be gouverned more to the middle of the image.
Another thing is the placement. The main focus of the image should be (more or less) at the intersections of a "Rule of thirds" (See spoiler below for an rule of thirds assesment of this image). This is also because the human brain focuses on these areas at first and easily the most.
There are a multitude of more tricks, but they are consistent with
Thanos247 assesment. If the main focus of the image is the character, the character should be shown, at least the face.
So, what was my thought of the message I wanted to give the viewer of the image?
1. SHE is pregnant.
2. she is PREGNANT
For me, it was the second one.
(Yeah, I know, master level story telling there, needing over 1 Mio. Pixels to tell a sentence of three words
)
So, I'm quite happy with
Thanos247 assesment here, because they instantly recognized that Dee is the main character, but not the main focus of the image. It also tells me, that I need to do a better job of making the main focus (the positive test) make pop out more.
Thanks for the compliment for the
second picture here again
.
(Don't worry, this part will be shorter)
Straight to my conclusion:
I did somewhat of an acceptable job showing her emotions throught the reflection in the mirror, while comunicating that the concern is based on the test she is holding. But why did I again take a back shot, and not a front one? This is basicly down to two things:
1. If the shot would be from another angle than the back, the viewer wouldn't be able to see the test.
2. The camera would need to bei either really close to the character, or outside the room, which would look really akward, because we are normaly used to not be able to look through walls.
Thus the backshot. (And I wanted to see if I could pull of a mirror shot, which are quite demanding).
But I didn't manage to convey the link between both images. the second one was intended to be something like a "a few minutes later..", she is still in the bathroom, has a lot to process, needs her time to think.
This might have been better with another angle, where you could see her pose better, because she is leaned over and kind of curled together on the bathroom chair, which would have made her concernement (and maybe fear) far more obvious. But I couldn't make it work with showing her face and the test of in this way.
I hope I have captured your issues here in the right way, that I need to make it more obvious what the main focus of the image should be. Yeah, in my cases it isn't Dee, it's her current state, and all that reality train hit that comes with it.
The first part seems to work, the second not quite yet