Black and white portrait

[deepskye]

Hi all,

I'm new to photoforum, so I apologise if I make any mistakes here. I've been using a 500D for just a few years and have tried to slowly improve my understanding of what goes into photography, its still a long journey ahead.

Anyways, I wanted to start benefiting from critique of my photos, so here's one: it's a photo of my wife with her baby nephew, ISO 800, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/100 sec. This was shot in the morning in doors, and their wasnt enough sunlight in the room to shoot at lower iso without flash (which I didnt want to scare the baby with). Appreciate your feedback on everything (composition, technique), and would like your tips on shooting in these situations, and what I can do to get sharper images -- it proved difficult to have the fingers sharp although thats where I set my focus on. Cheers.

 

[ceeboy14]

Focus is a bit soft.

 

[amolitor]

First of all, this is stylistically not to everyone's taste. I happen to think it's kind of interesting and sweet, though.

Compositionally:

- the bright white triangle under baby's nose is distracting/eye-catching and takes away from the interaction of the fingers, which is the important thing here. You could just darken that in an editor to make it less important visually.

- I don't much like the texture of the baby's (?) outfit on the bottom of the frame, it is also a little distracting. Again, a bit of gentle burning to darken that down might help.

This is almost an abstract, it's about this central idea of intertwining fingers with just enough background to give context. You can make that background quite dark and indistinct, and the picture will only improve.

Focus might be a bit soft on the fingers, or maybe the camera's just not that great. I don't think it matters in an ultimately soft and intimate picture like this one. Just get the eyes onto the right things and off the wrong things, and you'll be happier.