C&C fun family shoot

fotomumma09 · Aug 27, 2012

So I have been practicing on family/friends. Ahhh can't seem to take a shot without cropping off something. I am finding in the busyness of the shoot I continue to miss key elements.

What do you guys think of this one?
D

deepsixphoto · Aug 27, 2012

Nice shooting. Aside from the slightly lopped off limbs, the family is posed well and thy seem to be having a good time - which is important!

I just did a family shoot (I put some pics up somewhere down below!) and it is definitely difficult to avoid cropping off limbs and fingers when there is a lot going on! I still noticed that I did it in some of the shots, but I tried to always allow for a lot of extra room around the subjects if I knew it was going to be essentially a full body shot. In most instances that seemed to work - but I was consciously thinking about it the whole time!

Designer · Aug 27, 2012

fotomumma09 said:
So I have been practicing on family/friends. Ahhh can't seem to take a shot without cropping off something. I am finding in the busyness of the shoot I continue to miss key elements.

What do you guys think of this one?
D

You have captured a tightly composed group, so why not simply crop tighter? this shot can easily be cropped to "half portrait" on everybody, so forget the feet. They're probably not that important anyway.

While you're at it, bring in the top and both sides as well. You will get a very nice informal group photo.

tirediron · Aug 27, 2012

While I agre with Designer's cropping idea in theory, in practice I can't seem to find a good crop for this image. It would have been much stronger had the boy on the right been looking toward the camera.

kevinkt · Aug 27, 2012

Like people above have mentioned. Probably shouldn't have cropped it so tight. It would have been nice to see all the limbs. Also I would've liked more bokeh to blur out the busy background.

fotomumma09 · Aug 28, 2012

Thank you all for your input! I did play with the crop and found that I just cropped at a different joint. I think the struggle is I'm trying so hard to get as close to the subjects to get as close as i can to the expressions but it gets me into trouble. I need to just move back more and leave more room for a crop PP.