Baby Pictures Critique

[steven4est]

I Have been taking pictures of my son for about 7 months and I LOVE IT!!!! I looked around and baby/newborn pictures are very expensive and some friends have told me I should look into providing services in my spare time. Please critique my photos and tell me if I am worthy of charging money for some of these. Thanks!!!

 

[tirediron]

Rule #1 (I have a lot of Rules #1): Your friends are NOT qualified to judge your photography. Rule #2, the opinion of family and friends is worth precisely what you paid for it. My answer. NO! Not yet - not to say you can't get there, but IMO, you're definitely not ready yet.

1. Very flat lighting (Think "passport" photo). Shadows are good; you need some shadows to add depth. The images is over-exposed by about 1/3 stop, and the setting... umm... wilted carrots? At least spring for fresh ones! The 'things on the wall' add nothing and are just a visual distraction.

2. The ears don't really work well with the full clothed child IMO, not sure why, but they don't. Again, slightly over-exposed image right. A bright window perhaps? This image is also rather flat and lacking in saturation.

3. Some serious white balance issues in htis one; the child looks almost jaundiced.

Overall, these are not bad 'proud parent' pictures, and I'm sure with a facebook page and word of mouth, you could get a few paying jobs from your friends and friends of friends, but I would suggest improving your skills somewhat first. Study composition; baby/young child photography is a very specialized area (I can't help it, I run like a girl from jobs like this), work on exposure and learn off-camera-flash techniques.

Just my $00.02 worth - your mileage may vary.

~John

 

[The_Traveler]

Rule #1 (I have a lot of Rules #1): Your friends are NOT qualified to judge your photography. Rule #2, the opinion of family and friends is worth precisely what you paid for it. My answer. NO! Not yet - not to say you can't get there, but IMO, you're definitely not ready yet.

No, No, No
They are badly lit, badly composed and not edited at all.
These are barely acceptable for family photos but the first and most compelling evidence that you aren't ready is that you think these are even close to 'pro' quality.

 

[Granddad]

If you're thinking about making money at baby photography, forget it before you invest any more money in equipment. If you want to take photos because you love taking photos by all means work towards taking good ones... Sorry, but I agree with Tirediron, you're not there yet.

There's a reason that good baby photographers are expensive - they've invested years of work and study get where they are and many thousands of $£$£$£ in equipment.
Like tirediron I run for the hills when people ask me to photograph their babies. Don't be fooled by the fact that yours loves cameras, he's rare!

If you decide this is something you want to progress in; be warned that it's more addictive and expensive than heroin. Good luck!

 

[steven4est]

Rule #1 (I have a lot of Rules #1): Your friends are NOT qualified to judge your photography. Rule #2, the opinion of family and friends is worth precisely what you paid for it. My answer. NO! Not yet - not to say you can't get there, but IMO, you're definitely not ready yet.

No, No, No
They are badly lit, badly composed and not edited at all.
These are barely acceptable for family photos but the first and most compelling evidence that you aren't ready is that you think these are even close to 'pro' quality.

Could you elaborate on "badly lit" and "not edited at all?" I never used the word "pro" I simply stated I have recieved messages from people that were offering to pay for my services. I believe Photography is an art and all art is graded differently in everyones eyes. I appreciate all opinions, but I would also like to know how I can fix the problems that you all see. Im sure the "average person" would not notice or even care about these things as most of my customers would be "average" people and not people who have strict guidelines that someone made that must be followed when taking pictures. However I would like to learn the purest photographers way of editing and taking pictures as well as use my own opinions to give people a photograph that they will enjoy.

 

[steven4est]

this the photo without any editing. Could I recieve some critiques on the before photo? My editing is a bit limited bc I use Pixlr, and obviously i cut out his diaper and cropped the picture as well

 

[tirediron]

However I would like to learn the purest photographers way of editing and taking pictures as well as use my own opinions to give people a photograph that they will enjoy.

We call that, "Getting it right in the camera". It should take no more than five minutes at the most to take almost any file from your camera card and enhance it to maximum potential. This means learning how to pose and light the subject, how to optimize your exposure, and how to post-process. Your best bet for all of these are books and on-line video tutorials. Search YouTube for the following terms: "Portrait posing", "Infant posing", "Infant photography", "portrati lighting" and "portraiture" for a start. Then, go over here and read all about the wonderful world of budget off-camera lighting. Then, go over here and brush up on the basics of how your camera works.

We understand you're not necessarily talking about hanging out a shingle right now, but trust us; the "$50 friend session" often leads down an ugly path.

 

[jwbryson1]

View attachment 39087this the photo without any editing. Could I recieve some critiques on the before photo? My editing is a bit limited bc I use Pixlr, and obviously i cut out his diaper and cropped the picture as well

Can you turn the photo so the baby isn't sideways?

 

[Granddad]

One problem is that you've got your status set as "My Photos Are NOT OK to Edit" If you change that then some of the guys here will probably show you a few things that can be done.

This is a great place to learn and get tips if you don't mind that people will be honest... sometimes brutally so. I've stuck around for about 18 months and learned more than I would in a college class.

 

[pixmedic1 1]

what equipment did you use to take these? that would be a good place for us to start for determining how you might need to change how you are using what you already have, and what we think you need to get.

new photographers "charging" for their work is a bit of a hot topic here, so you will have to toughen up and prepare for the various "your not ready" type of comments. we see pretty much this exact post once a week. many people here believe that if you are accepting monetary compensation for your services, you are selling yourself as a "pro", and are therefor subject to the same critique and criticism one would give professional grade work. charging for your work, even as a part time amateur for cheap, opens you up to liabilities of a more legal nature. before you start charging as a photography "business", you should first have your business registered with the state, DBA if your using one, your tax ID (so you can pay taxes on your income, which is a legal requirement) and Liability insurance.

I realize you arent taking clients yet, I just wanted to throw that out there since you will probably hear it quite a bit around here.
as for your pictures, I think before you worry too much about doing any paid work, you should tighten up your photography techniques a bit.
you may need some off camera lighting, or faster lenses. its hard to say without knowing your equipment list.

lastly, just because you might cater to "average" people , doesn't mean that you should resign yourself to doing sub par work just because your clients don't know any better. learn your equipment, get what you need to do a good job, and learn good composition. when you can consistently produce a quality image, THEN you are ready to start charging for your work. There are already more than enough people on FB and Craigslist and wherever that don't care or aren't smart enough to learn how to use their camera, or learn the basics of photography that are doing $50 photo sessions with 100 images on disk producing ghastly images for people that don't seem to know any better. please don't be one of those. there are lot of people here that will be more than willing to lend you their expertise. especially if they see you are willing to take advice and learn.

if you REALLY want to get involved in the learning process, we have a mentoring thread where you can hook up with an experienced photographer (online, or local if someones in your area) where they can give you a more one on one learning experience. not sure how active it still is, but it cant hurt to look into it.
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/beyond-basics/125099-official-mentors-bio-list.html

 

[The_Traveler]

Could you elaborate on "badly lit" and "not edited at all?" I never used the word "pro" I simply stated I have recieved messages from people that were offering to pay for my services. I believe Photography is an art and all art is graded differently in everyones eyes. I appreciate all opinions, but I would also like to know how I can fix the problems that you all see. Im sure the "average person" would not notice or even care about these things as most of my customers would be "average" people and not people who have strict guidelines that someone made that must be followed when taking pictures. However I would like to learn the purest photographers way of editing and taking pictures as well as use my own opinions to give people a photograph that they will enjoy.

Steven,

"I believe Photography is an art and all art is graded differently in everyones eyes"
Photography is an art and intelligent, educated people can have differing opinions about what is good and what is bad but generally there are certain basic facts about light and color and composition that people do agree on.

You don't even have the vocabulary so there is almost no way to explain just how many things there are to correct just for these pictures, let alone in your picture taking..

For example:
your images are very 'soft'- perhaps bad f stop choice, perhaps camera motion perhaps just bad lens maybe you just missed focus
white balance is off - do you know what it takes to fix that and manage it consistently"
there are hot spots in the lighting
the images are overcompressed
the colors are undersaturated

Because you don't know things, you seem to believe there is nothing to know.

Look at good baby photos here or on any site, or in commercials and, until you have the vocabulary and the understanding to know why they are different from what you are doing, you aren't ready to charge money.

 

[cynicaster]

Keep at it, OP—you’ll get there eventually if you’re determined to do so, but I agree with others in that maybe you should hold off on charging money. This comes from somebody who wouldn’t dream of charging money either, so this is not me looking down my nose.

As for constructive criticism, I agree with most of the things already said (especially about lighting and color), but I want to emphasize one thing in particular. In the first photo, you can see a clearly defined, crisp shadow of the child projected back on to the wall. For me, that’s like nails on a chalkboard… for the eyes. I’d suggest you look into off camera flash and diffusion techniques.

 

[Qveon]

Rule #1 (I have a lot of Rules #1): Your friends are NOT qualified to judge your photography. Rule #2, the opinion of family and friends is worth precisely what you paid for it. My answer. NO! Not yet - not to say you can't get there, but IMO, you're definitely not ready yet.

No, No, No
They are badly lit, badly composed and not edited at all.
These are barely acceptable for family photos but the first and most compelling evidence that you aren't ready is that you think these are even close to 'pro' quality.

I'm with these two men. AND i think you should stop taking pictures of children naked.

 

[steven4est]

Could you elaborate on "badly lit" and "not edited at all?" I never used the word "pro" I simply stated I have recieved messages from people that were offering to pay for my services. I believe Photography is an art and all art is graded differently in everyones eyes. I appreciate all opinions, but I would also like to know how I can fix the problems that you all see. Im sure the "average person" would not notice or even care about these things as most of my customers would be "average" people and not people who have strict guidelines that someone made that must be followed when taking pictures. However I would like to learn the purest photographers way of editing and taking pictures as well as use my own opinions to give people a photograph that they will enjoy.

Steven,

"I believe Photography is an art and all art is graded differently in everyones eyes"
Photography is an art and intelligent, educated people can have differing opinions about what is good and what is bad but generally there are certain basic facts about light and color and composition that people do agree on.

You don't even have the vocabulary so there is almost no way to explain just how many things there are to correct just for these pictures, let alone in your picture taking..

For example:
your images are very 'soft'- perhaps bad f stop choice, perhaps camera motion perhaps just bad lens maybe you just missed focus
white balance is off - do you know what it takes to fix that and manage it consistently"
there are hot spots in the lighting
the images are overcompressed
the colors are undersaturated

Because you don't know things, you seem to believe there is nothing to know.

Look at good baby photos here or on any site, or in commercials and, until you have the vocabulary and the understanding to know why they are different from what you are doing, you aren't ready to charge money.

Okay, so this is Kelli, I am the one that actually took these photos, my husband posted them even though i asked him not to because I get embarassed easily, and I did not want to be hurt because I obviously know I am no where near being a good photographer (but apparently he thinks I am because I had a few people ask me to take theirs)...but since they are out there now I will take any criticism I can get and try not to be hurt by it, so I can continue to become better at photographing my family. I am an xray tech so I do know some basics of brightness, saturation, contrast, and over/underexposure, although that is still different because in xray you are only dealing with white,gray, and black tones and I am not the best with color photography. I understand that my lighting was not good at all now that I look at them and get what you mean about them being too soft. I think my problem was since I was trying to do some cute Easter pics I wanted them to be softer colors but instead I just made the images very washed out . The camera I shoot with is a Canon Rebel ESO t3i and I just have the basic lens that comes with it, I haven't had it for very long so I'm still trying to figure it out.. The day that i went to take these pics my manual mode was not working at all, every time I took a photograph they came out completely black, I even reset my camera and it did not work, so these were taken in auto which did not work so well as you can see. I do own photoshop but it is a very old version and does not work on my mac, so I have just been using pixlr advanced since I did not see a point in buying a new photoshop yet because I do not plan on doing this for money, just for my family. Also, I took a basic photography course back in high school but that was somewhere around 7 years ago so I really don't remember much and need to be refreshed on a lot. So please, any help is welcome, thanks -Kelli

 

[The_Traveler]

AND i think you should stop taking pictures of children naked.

If this is a serious comment and you think pictures of naked babies are somehow wrong, I think that you need to take a hard look at your standards.