How about these??

[c.cloudwalker]

By limiting the tonal range between his skin and his clothes, you make your life easier but it would still be good to learn to deal with the problem.

Another thought: is there a sheer in front of your window? If not get a couple of simple white ones that you can hang temporarily and you've just gotten yourself a diffuser. A lot of lighting situation will require a combo of diffuser, reflector and flash/strobe.

 

[keith foster]

Hey that windshield thing will work as a reflector just fine. The photography ones are the same thing just different shape. I have heard of people using stryrofoam covered in aluminum foil.

Here is a shot I did this week for a senior photo session that is just a silver reflector like you have and a $4 flashlight. There was a large window about 30 feet away across the room and she is facing it but we are in the darkened part of the room.
I had a friend stand behind me and aim the flashlight at the reflector and we bounced the light onto her face. I am not posting this as a great shot but am just saying you can get some good looks with very little.

 

[MissKH]

i am still learning so i dont have much of a critique for you but could not resist telling you that in the first photo his eyes ,more specifically the eyelashes, really draw me into that photo

 

[jackieclayton]

i am still learning so i dont have much of a critique for you but could not resist telling you that in the first photo his eyes ,more specifically the eyelashes, really draw me into that photo

thank you! I agree with you, the eyes draw me in... but my husband thought they look too "popped" like over processed or something (eh, what does he know... ) I was going to ask that of the forum too, if anyone else thinks it looks over processed? I wanted to sharpen everything up in post processing since most of my images came out soft, but I didn't know if I over sharpened them.

 

[Deftly ~ HatheG]

Magnificence​

 

[mom2eight]

They do not look overly sharpened to me. Did you use the unsharp mask?

 

[keith foster]

I don't think the pp on his eyes is an issue.

 

[Dominantly]

Be careful with trying to compensate for a missed focus, with PP sharpening. It often can make an image feel unnatural, or introduce noise. I've done my fair share of trial an error with it.

 

[gsgary]

#1 is soft because you didn't use a fast enough shutter speed for your focal length

 

[jackieclayton]

Thanks everyone for your input, I really appreciate all the feedback and I've taken note of all the recommendations!! i'm spending the next couple days getting ready to go back to work (i've been on maternity leave for nearly 4 months!) but I will try and play around this weekend if I can get a chance to see if I can get some better shots from the tips you guys gave me. Thanks everyone! :hail:

 

[The_Traveler]

There have been lots of comments about this pic since I saw it and I agree with most of them.

The first thing you need to learn is how to reade and use the histogram on the camera. If your child's skin is the lightest part of the scene it will be overexposed as the camera attempts to place the average at medium grey. So dress and put the child in a setting where the skin will get enough light to have some detail and texture without being blown out. Children's faces generally don't do well as more adult faces in scenes with high dynamic range. That's one reason why commercial photo shops flood the scene with bright even soft light; that allows you to capture the fine texture of a child's skin wihout blowing it out or having deep shadows.

You also need to learn balance the triad of aperture, shutter speed and ISO. Don't shoot at a speed that is less than 1/focal length. (your minimum shot for an 120 mm focal length should be at least 1/120th) Use DOF tables to understand how much DOF you have with different f stops at different focal lengths.

Don't worry about fancy focus setting, learn to focus on the eyes, the most critical part in pictures of people. Don't cut off important parts, don't let unimportant parts be too prominent in the picture, keep the background undisturbing and fill the frame with important stuff.

Lew