First Family Portrait Session

[Big Bully]

I had the opportunity to shoot a big family get together for their first full family portrait. I am not a professional by any means, but I did have a good time.

 

[TwoRails]

Those are some fun shots!! - Nice looking family.

 

[Big Bully]

Thank you, they are friends of mine. They were going to go to Sears to get a family portrait until I told them I could do much better. lol

 

[rmh159]

Not bad. I think the last two are the stronger ones from the series and could benefit from some creative cropping and post-processing love.

 

[Rich-D]

I love the baby! FANTASTIC HAIR! Cool, fun looking family!

 

[Andrew Sun]

baby's hair is very cool - and cute
background scenery could use some work - particularly finding better looking places because the trees all look...dead and that affects the characters too

any photo these days almost always needs some post-processing work to bring it to the next level (without going overboard), so you might want to try that too
but credit to you nonetheless =)

 

[Big Bully]

Ya the trees haven't sprouted leaves yet. But the beginning of April was the only time that the family could get together. What kind of post processing could I do to make them look better?

 

[Early]

It certainly did beat going to Sears. I would think, anyway! Nice poses, and everyone looked nice and relaxed. The only downer is that not all the kids are looking at the camera in some of them.

 

[timethief]

Backgrounds too busy in my opinion.and some of them are not sharp enough.

 

[Big Bully]

It certainly did beat going to Sears. I would think, anyway! Nice poses, and everyone looked nice and relaxed. The only downer is that not all the kids are looking at the camera in some of them.

I know, it was so hard to get the kids to all pay attention. They were cold, a busy road was right next to us. It also didn't help that Grandma and Grandpa don't like each other much.. Or at least that is what I am told. :er:

 

[stsinner]

I think you did great work! It's a shame that the matriarch and patriarch don't know how to smile and ruined ever shot they were in-no reflection on you, though, except that you don't know how to tell really good fart jokes to get them cracking up.....

By now you should know to number them.. or perhaps you weren't looking for critique, in which case it wouldn't matter, but there is the one were it's the grandparents and the mohawk dude and his lady that would have been a great, GREAT picture, had the old fogeys smiled the slightest bit...

I think that they need a little more PP, but I do believe that they are much better than you'd get at Sears, depending on how you can get them printed out for framing and matting... You did a good job. The reason I say this is that you get much better results in actual situations, instead of people talking about how fake a fake farm background and wagon wheel looks...

 

[rubbertree]

cute family!
#1, 6 and 7 need some of the empty space above their heads cropped out.
They could all use some PP like others have mentioned.

 

[Big Bully]

I think you did great work! It's a shame that the matriarch and patriarch don't know how to smile and ruined ever shot they were in-no reflection on you, though, except that you don't know how to tell really good fart jokes to get them cracking up.....

By now you should know to number them.. or perhaps you weren't looking for critique, in which case it wouldn't matter, but there is the one were it's the grandparents and the mohawk dude and his lady that would have been a great, GREAT picture, had the old fogeys smiled the slightest bit...

I think that they need a little more PP, but I do believe that they are much better than you'd get at Sears, depending on how you can get them printed out for framing and matting... You did a good job. The reason I say this is that you get much better results in actual situations, instead of people talking about how fake a fake farm background and wagon wheel looks...

The girl with the long hair is the mohawk guys sister. Yeah I need to learn how to tell jokes or something. It was hard to tell if they were smiling or doing something right, because to get the whole family in the shot I had to be pretty far back and zoom in. And no one knew when I was taking a shot, so I could get some emotion and natural stuff. I hate posed photos, they look too fake.
I have to learn how to do some PP, what kind of PP does it need? Any thoughts?

 

[stsinner]

I have to learn how to do some PP, what kind of PP does it need? Any thoughts?

I think they would benefit from some sharpening and maybe contrast/saturation adjustments.. I know everyone has their own way of dong this, and most people us Photoshop or Lightroom, but I find that Picasa does a great job of most PP, and it's free and SIMPLE!!!! Like pressing the button that says SHARPEN and adjusting a slider for how much sharpening you want..

 

[adamwilliamking]

Having everyone looking in the same direction is key.
Also, having people looking "out of the frame" is super distracting in a photograph.
Not trying to be harsh just some advice that will definitely help you in the future.