Newbie C&C - 5 pics

[pony]

I am super new, but trying to learn how to photograph people.
My daughter has been a good sport about letting me practice on her.
I do not have photoshop, and can only do simple editing in flickr, so I would especially like advice on improving how my pics look straight out of the camera.
I hope to be able to get a good photo editor soon, but I need critique and practice until then.

Thanks in advance for any tips

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

 

[camz]

Ahh a natural light shoot

1. Shadows on her face caused by her cap resulting in underexposure of her eyes. You lost alot of detail in result.

2. I love off camera looks more natural. This one is better exposed although the framing isn't as interesting. You also cut off her ears.

3. Again b/c of the underexposure you lost alot of detail. Nice smile though!

4. Look at the details pop on this, the lighting is great(some uneven rations but decent). Very happy picture.

5. I like the editing. I personally would've shot this on a smaller aperature as the brick floor would've made a great background clear. See the knub on the end of the fence to her buttom right. I would've had her face right next to it as emits a very interesting reflection(Just my preference though). Her face is a tad underexposed on this one.

For just starting these are not bad :thumbup:. Looking at the overall shoot I think you need to practice on your exposure a bit more. If you're using Auto, meter your subjects in the face and don't forget to shoot where there are even ratios of light like shaded areas.

Happy shooting!

 

[pony]

Ahh a natural light shoot

yes. Sadly I am pretty poor right now so new toys will have to be saved for over a period of time. I did just get a reflector today though. 24" silver/white triangular off ebay for $17. Hopefully that will help a smidge with the light on faces. A flash will hopefully be in the near future

1. Shadows on her face caused by her cap resulting in underexposure of her eyes. You lost alot of detail in result.

Yep, I totally underexposed it and was bummed because I liked the picture it could have been. Lightening it up washed it all out a bit. Would there have been any saving a seriously underexposed photo if I had a real photoshop?

2. I love off camera looks more natural. This one is better exposed although the framing isn't as interesting. You also cut off her ears.

I only cut off the one...the other is just hiding

3. Again b/c of the underexposure you lost alot of detail. Nice smile though!

That seems to be a recurring theme for me. I have ordered "Understanding Exposure" and plan on reading it cover to cover about 10 times

4. Look at the details pop on this, the lighting is great(some uneven rations but decent). Very happy picture.

What are uneven rations?

5. I like the editing. I personally would've shot this on a smaller aperature as the brick floor would've made a great background clear. See the knub on the end of the fence to her buttom right. I would've had her face right next to it as emits a very interesting reflection(Just my preference though). Her face is a tad underexposed on this one.

I did not notice the brick until I had it on the computer and I had the same thought. This was also my first black and white. I now know what kind of lines/textures might look good in B&W. In real color they were kind of a yucky color so I tried to blur them out a bit...obviously spacing out that I was shooting BW
Good tips about reflections. She is just barely 3 years old so I take what I can get. Just happy she was standing relatively still LOL My sister (who is 30, and much more focused!) has asked me to practice by taking some engagement pics of her and her fiancee. I am hoping they will be for real good practice for me. I am cruising this site to get some good ideas for what to do with them. I'm excited to have models with an attention span of more than 34 seconds!

For just starting these are not bad :thumbup:. Looking at the overall shoot I think you need to practice on your exposure a bit more. If you're using Auto, meter your subjects in the face and don't forget to shoot where there are even ratios of light like shaded areas.

Happy shooting!

Thank you so much for taking the time to look at these. Exposure is hard for me. I have ordered "Understanding Exposure" on a suggestion in another forum here so hopefully that along with some serious trial and error will start to help me a lot.

 

[alexanderdel]

I love #5. I think it's a great picture!

 

[FarrahJ]

Your dd is adorable! =)

1- BAD lighting. =( Be on the look out for harsh sun conditions.

2- Nice...the ear chop doesn't bother me, but the soft glow does...I'm guessing this was added in pp?

3- looks a bit soft...the lighting is a bit better, but still a bit dappled...not too bad, though

4- WAYYYYYYY over processed eyes...I'm guessing you oversharpened because they were soft to begin with. Her skin also looks wonky...patches of yellow and patches of red.

5- not too bad...I wish her hair wasn't in her eye though. Your conversion is a bit muddy, but maybe if you boost the midtone curves, you can brighten her face up a bit. I'd probably clone the blown spot above her left shoulder.

 

[c.cloudwalker]

Your kid is quite cute and has a very nice smile. Nice to have such a model for free. That said:

1/ Weird tones to the skin and the shadows are not great. This photo could have been helped a lot by a fill flash. Even if on camera, I think.

2/ The cropping of the ear (and chin) doesn't bother me. It is a tight crop. The softness of the face does however because it does not match what is happening in the rest of the image. Skin tones are much better in this one.

3/ This would have been better if it wasn't soft. Light and tones are good, focus definitely seem to be on the eyes, but it is soft.

4/ Yellow/green tone again. And the angle is not very pleasant.

5/ The angle works better in this photo. The B&W conversion is quite nice but her hair is a mess. I think I would have included the rest of the hands but that is a personal choice.

You say you do not have PS. Get Gimp. It is free and from I read here is quite good. Quite sure it will let you do a lot more than flicker. Including dodging and burning. Dodging of the eye area in #1 and burning of the too light pavers' area in #5.

Overall, very nice for a practice shoot.

 

[Britta G]

I'm new to photography as well so I'm learning, but I really like the last picture.

As far as photoshop. I wasn't able to afford photoshop until I started going to school, where I get a big discount, so I was using a program called gimp.

It's very similar to photoshop, but it's completely free. Youtube has a lot of tutorials for gimp, and it is widely used. Also flickr has a group for gimp users where you can ask how to do something and people will respond in a forum to help you out. I would check it out until you can get photoshop.

The website is
www.gimp.org