First Child Portrait Shoot, 1 Year Old

eric-holmes · Mar 24, 2010

This is my little nephew. It is my first attempt at shooting portraits of a child. All shots were used with natural lighting. C&C if you wish. Thanks for looking.

I realize that some digits or limbs may be cut off but this proved to be a much more difficult task than I thought. I was using my 50mm prime lens and not having the zoom at the touch of my finger hurt me.

Also, I might add, all images are un-cropped because I do not know what size the customer may want and I would hate to crop it poorly.

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5.

TylerF · Mar 24, 2010

something about him reminds me of gene hackman lol dont ask me why.

#1 seems a bit soft

#4 is my favorite setting, have any more of him with the tree?

eric-holmes · Mar 24, 2010

Yes, I have several of him by the tree. How is the sharpness on the others? Besides the last one.

IgsEMT · Mar 25, 2010

they are all too soft

for my flavor

ghache · Mar 25, 2010

i really like #3 and #4

eric-holmes · Mar 25, 2010

These were all shot and edited in RAW format. I am still learning how to edit RAW's. I had the clarity set to 0 on all of these. Would it help to bump it up?

rufus5150 · Mar 25, 2010

I wouldn't, not with these shots at least. You should probably bump the exposure as they're all a tad on the dark side and the fill light as his eyes are very dark in all of them, something that could be remedied by a reflector in the future. Get light up into the face.

#1 your DOF could have been slightly larger bringing the feet into focus.

On #2, I would have pushed his head up into the top 3rd of the frame and included his feet. Lots of empty space here over his head which draws attention to the fact the feet are cut off.

Similar with #3 though by removing the head space you'd still end up with a 3/4 portrait which would really work.

The poses and expressions are excellent in the first 3.

#4 doesn't work for me beyond being just a shot of a cute kiddo.

jenn2 · Mar 25, 2010

One of the hardest parts of photographing children often times is getting their attention/smiling. That being said, you managed pretty well, as for the technical side of the portraits, yea I agree with rufus5150, watch out for your in camera cropping and use relectors. Even in overcast days, relectors help.

eric-holmes · Mar 25, 2010

rufus5150 said:
I wouldn't, not with these shots at least. You should probably bump the exposure as they're all a tad on the dark side and the fill light as his eyes are very dark in all of them, something that could be remedied by a reflector in the future. Get light up into the face.

#1 your DOF could have been slightly larger bringing the feet into focus.

On #2, I would have pushed his head up into the top 3rd of the frame and included his feet. Lots of empty space here over his head which draws attention to the fact the feet are cut off.

Similar with #3 though by removing the head space you'd still end up with a 3/4 portrait which would really work.

The poses and expressions are excellent in the first 3.

#4 doesn't work for me beyond being just a shot of a cute kiddo.

So fill light will brighten his eyes? And I was so mad about cutting of his legs in those shots. I didn't have my zoom lens and I couldn't get back in time without missing the expression.

So you recommended not to up the clarity. Why not? What would it do?

eric-holmes · Mar 25, 2010

Here is an edit of #3. I pushed the exposure to +1 and added some fill light.

TylerF · Mar 25, 2010

this might just be me, but when i look at that edit, i see a line down the middle created by the shadow on the face and it lining up with the patter on the shirt. might just be my eyes though

eric-holmes · Mar 25, 2010

I guess I don't see what you are talking about lol. Thanks for the comments everyone. I am still trying to figure out how to get sharper pictures. They look fairly sharp on my monitor. I wonder if I lose any quality in the upload and transfer from photobucket.

KerriD · Mar 25, 2010

standing by the tree is my fav...these are great and his outfit is adorable.

rufus5150 · Mar 25, 2010

So fill light will brighten his eyes?

In general, light aimed at dark areas will make the areas lighter, so yes, fill will brighten his eyes even if it's added digitally.

So you recommended not to up the clarity. Why not? What would it do?

Clarity increases local contrast, especially around the midtones. You can probably get away with these by bumping it to 5-10 maybe, but especially with children, high push on the clarity sliders will desaturate the skin tone a bit and give them a very strange definition in their features.

eric-holmes · Mar 25, 2010

Do you have any advice on how to improve the sharpness in PP? I keep all my sliders set to 0 initially in raw. From there I adjust the exposure to get a good histogram. I do all of my sharpening in Photoshop. But I don't know if I am going about it wrong.

I used the second and third videos in this link to set up my default sliders. http://www.cbrush.com/2008/12/photoshop-cs3-workflow-for_10.html