Little Girl at the Park

AprilRamone · May 30, 2006

It took awhile for this little girl to warm up to me at all. And actually, she never really warmed up to me, but was eventually responsive to her mother. Any comments or criticisms are extremely appreciated and welcome

-April

AprilRamone · May 30, 2006

Ok, so I keep trying to get these to be smaller so I've resized them in PS and then uploaded them to my photobucket account, but it's not working. They keep staying huge like this. Anyone have this problem before and know why it's happening?

Janet80 · May 30, 2006

Well I'm new here, but I hope you don't mind if I take a stab at it. I've only had one college photography class and it was black and white photography. By the way, was there a reason you chose to make all of these block and white?

First, the top one. It cuts off the top of her head in a very awkward place. I would suggest either cropping higher, if you cropped at all, or if you did not then bring it in as tight as you can to make it appear that you cropped it that way on purpose.

The second one is very muddy color wise.... everything is gray except for the really bright dress, which draws away from the girls face and eyes in my opinion.

I like the third one a lot.

It is a bit muddy too though, I would say that higher contrast would help you out, especially if you could put higher contrast only on the ground and *not* on the dress. You could even crop it lower including only a couple inches of her dress and focus on those cute little feet and the shovel.... its too dark down there, you know?

Okay so thats it for now.

Nice pictures

JEazy · May 30, 2006

resize them in your photobucket account, not in photoshop.

Holly · May 30, 2006

IN Photobucket they resize to the original size because its stored IN photobucket for like a day IF you already had them there ONCE.. YOu need to RESIZE and Rename the photo before uploading..

Cute pictures though!!

AprilRamone · May 30, 2006

JEazy said:
resize them in your photobucket account, not in photoshop.

I actually tried that and they still came out huge for some reason. I've tried deleting them completely from photobucket and putting them back on MUCH smaller and they still show up here way too big. Seems like I always have this problem so I hardly ever post anything.

AprilRamone · May 30, 2006

Holly said:
IN Photobucket they resize to the original size because its stored IN photobucket for like a day IF you already had them there ONCE.. YOu need to RESIZE and Rename the photo before uploading..

Cute pictures though!!

That's weird because I ALWAYS resize my images to a smaller size BEFORE I put them on there. But, next time I'll try to rename them too.
I'm working on editing these...I'll repost (hopefully smaller) with the edits.

Alison · May 30, 2006

You got some cute expressions and angles here. I agree that they are a bit flat in contrast though. A fill flash would help to bring out her eyes as well. Very sweet series

AprilRamone · May 30, 2006

Alison said:
You got some cute expressions and angles here. I agree that they are a bit flat in contrast though. A fill flash would help to bring out her eyes as well. Very sweet series

Thanks Alison!
Yes, I am planning on investing in a nice flash this summer so I will be practicing with it as a fill flash. I've shied away from using flash before because right now I only have the on camera flash and I never think it looks very good!
I agree with both you and Janet about the muddiness. I think I was feeling sort of lazy about doing the post processing work this time and thought maybe it wasn't that noticeable. But, apparently it was! lol
I have reposted them smaller and I tried to make them not as muddy.

AprilRamone · May 30, 2006

Janet80 said:
By the way, was there a reason you chose to make all of these block and white?

First, the top one. It cuts off the top of her head in a very awkward place. I would suggest either cropping higher, if you cropped at all, or if you did not then bring it in as tight as you can to make it appear that you cropped it that way on purpose.

I like the third one a lot. It is a bit muddy too though, I would say that higher contrast would help you out, especially if you could put higher contrast only on the ground and *not* on the dress. You could even crop it lower including only a couple inches of her dress and focus on those cute little feet and the shovel.... its too dark down there, you know?

Hi Janet.
Thanks so much for the in-depth critique. I agreed with you on the muddiness on these so I went back in and tried to make them pop a bit more. (I had a hard time with the 2nd one though. I might have start over on it) I didn't choose to do all of the picture from the session in B&W but most of them are. The mom really likes B&W and so do I. I usually just prefer it unless an image just looks really nice in color.
As far as the cropping of the dress one, I actually just prefer it the way it is (although I did experiment a little with cropping it different ways- although I didn't like them as much) And, on the first, I cropped it that way when I took the shot. I also experimented a bit with cropping that one differently, but once again I thought it looked worse. (although I might cut off just a smidge from the bottom).
It sounds like you learned a lot from your class. I was a photo major in college...are you planning to take any more?
Anyway, welcome to the forum. I look forward to seeing your work.
-April

JohnMF · May 30, 2006

i think number 2 is great, it's not your classic childrens pose but i think it looks really cool :thumbup: . I think maybe a very faint vignette would compliment this photo too.

AprilRamone · May 30, 2006

JohnMF said:
i think number 2 is great, it's not your classic childrens pose but i think it looks really cool :thumbup: . I think maybe a very faint vignette would compliment this photo too.

Thanks John. That's a great idea...although I have a hard time with Vignettes. I'll try it though.

JohnMF · May 30, 2006

i usually draw a oval marque with the edges slightly outside the canvas area and with quite a strong feather on it. Making sure it's on a new layer, inverse it then fill with black. Then you can reduce the layer opacity to suit. Don't know if that's any help to you

AprilRamone · May 30, 2006

JohnMF said:
i usually draw a oval marque with the edges slightly outside the canvas area and with quite a strong feather on it. Making sure it's on a new layer, inverse it then fill with black. Then you can reduce the layer opacity to suit. Don't know if that's any help to you

Thanks. How's this?

JohnMF · May 30, 2006

that's exactly what i had in mind. IMO i think that looks better, nice finishing touch. I wouldn't do anything else to it myself :thumbup:

What do you think yourself though??