First, it's all about the light:
Overcast outdoor light is really good for portraits with one caveat: You can't include the sky. A bright overcast sky is a backlight period. It will blow out and can only blow out and you can only get a burned white hole in your photo -- period. Don't do it. You'll get some folks who will say that it's OK to blow an overcast sky. You'll get more folks who will say that any blown highlights that aren't specular equals game over. I'm in that second camp; blown diffuse highlights equals game over -- don't do it.
Your highlights in the first photo are blown -- game over. There's no alternative or technical solution to this: a bright overcast sky is a backlight and will burn out -- so just don't. So that means evaluating the lighting and adapting; do what will work. Did you know before you tripped the shutter on the first photo that a burned out sky was the only option? This is your key. If you so much as touch your camera before you make a conscious assessment of the lighting you're a crash and burn -- see the light.
Sorry for the harsh words, but it's all about the light and either you see it or you don't. Never trip a shutter release unless you have consciously assessed the lighting.
You put up an earlier post asking about RAW files versus camera JPEGs. I'm going to assume this photo was a camera processed JPEG. Any hope you may have had to salvage this from the fire would have rested in a RAW capture. Your camera software took a bad lighting choice and cast it concrete. A RAW capture would have at least allowed you to keep the highlight data in your son's left cheek and shirt. Saving RAW files can make a huge difference but lighting is the most critical factor. In the first photo the overcast light was good, inclusion of the sky was bad and a RAW capture would have saved the photo except for the sky.
Danny is right about the color. Again I'm going to assume you had the camera set to auto white balance. Auto white balance doesn't work. It never works. As a result your photo is way too blue. Back to the RAW versus JPEG argument; you have three choices. 1. Shoot RAW and adjust the WB in post or 2. Carry a WB card with you and set a custom WB every time you shoot or 3. Let the camera do it, and you have a 100% guarantee of error which you'll have to try and repair. Choice three is a bad way to go.
You can improve the first photo if you have to. Adjust the color and tone response and drop some fake color in the sky. A fake sky is a fake and it looks fake -- better than not, but -- you know it's "shopped."
Lose the train tracks. Modern cameras should have a train tracks sensor built in so that the shutter release locks up whenever the camera senses that it's near train tracks. I used to tease my students and suggest that I had invented an auto-art function for cameras. It worked negatively and locked the shutter release whenever the camera sensed critically trite subject matter. Point the camera at a hot-air balloon and a big red circle with a diagonal line would appear in the viewfinder; train tracks are on the list. The only thing you can possibly do that's more trite and cliche than train tracks is make some reference to Jame T. Kirk, aka William Shatner the world's worst actor.
Joe
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