I'd love to make this photo better - thoughts?

[MelB]

Hi everyone, I took some pics of my son the other day and quite liked this one. I was gutted that I cut some of his hand off :x Looks a bit weird and chubby baby hands are far too cute to be cutting off! Anyway....I'm a complete noob, and don't really know any of the technical stuff (yet, I'm learning!). I'm all for a softer background so the person stands out, but the tree seems blurry and kinda hard on your eyes? I guess I coud crop it out, but then I quite like the leaves.... Any thoughts in general on how I could make this pic better? Tips for next time? I'm keen to learn and improve - thanks!

 

[Benco]

If you want a softer background you need to shoot with a wide aperture to create a shallow depth of field. IMO the tree would be no less distracting if it were in sharp focus, perhaps more. It's no help with this pic but you could experiment with shallow DOF in the future.

 

[DiskoJoe]

looks fine. Leave it alone.

 

[tirediron]

I don't think there's too much you can do to this image; for future reference, consider shooting in the vertical "portrait" orientation, use a larger aperture and longer focal length to achieve greater DoF and maybe some fill flash to reduce the brightness of the sky.

 

[KmH]

Using some fill light would have helped. Try to keep your camera level.

The boy is somewhat underexposed because of the bright background and dappled sunlight on his forehead.

When shooting people it is helpful to use center-weighted or spot metering.

As mentioned turning the camera to the vertical (portrait) frame orientation would also help by eliminating a lot of background distractions

At this point what you can do is to crop the photo in a vertical or close to square format.

 

[ATVrider43]

Its pretty good as is...maybe a little lomo? But I played around a little, maybe you'll like this

 

[deepsun]

It's composed well with him being just off center, and with the fact that you got down on his level instead of shooting over top of him.

I would have gone for a more inviting expression, although the one he's making isn't "bad" it's just not as "relaxed" as some expressions you might see on a kid's face.

Also, what time of day did you shoot this? The highlights look a little clipped in the back so you might want to try some shots later in the day for less harsh but more dramatic lighting.

Good start!

 

[MelB]

Wow, thanks so much for your comments! Off to read my manual again and experiement with DOF and figure out what fill flash is........Love the edits too, thanks for that. KmH, could you please explain what spot metering is? Thanks
This is him with a happier expression, not keen on the shadow under his eyes though.

 

[KmH]

DSLR camera have 3 or 4 light metering modes.

Understanding Camera Metering and Exposure