My Nephew Needs C&C

[Dray1027]

Goofing off with my youngest Nephew, & I shot a couple pics. Here is the one I picked, give some critiques & criticisms please.

 

[TCampbell]

Give us more info about this photo. What did you do to create it? What settings? What effect were you going for?

I look at this and immediately I noticed his lower lip and the tip of his nose are "almost" in focus. Everything else is way out of focus. However... his eyes have better focus and that doesn't jibe. It makes me wonder if you didn't deliberately manipulate the image (blurring it) or if you cloned in eyes from another image.

I'm not a fan of selective color. If you were going for sharp eyes and a natural amount of blur then I'd suggest using a lens with a low focal ratio (e.g. a 50mm f/1.4 or f/1.8) and "carefully" focus on the eyes (you need to control your auto-focus system and force it to lock on the eyes.) If his head is angled too much (so the eyes are different distances) and your depth of field is too narrow, then it wont work. This assumes you were intentionally trying to create a soft look.

 

[Starskream666]

Nah that is a post op effect hes used to soften everything over dramatically for some reason, doesn't look good. No need for the selective colouring either really

 

[Dray1027]

Thanks for the reply & C&C. Keeping in mind I'm completely new to what I would consider real photography. I've always enjoyed taking pictures but now have started to take it to the next level. The blur look & selective color, I was just experiencing with it in Photoshop, so yes it was done intentionally. I was trying to soften the edges while maintaining the focal point on the center of his face.

 

[cgipson1]

Underexposed.. look at the whites of the eyes... they are gray. Selective color seldom works.. and I do not feel it works here. You will find that most Fake Blur always looks fake.. and it will almost always draw negative comments from a knowledgeable audience. The shot is also very tightly framed... with multiple sides of the face cropped off, seldom a good choice since it looks so unnatural.