Niece portraits for C&C

[urahara]

These are portaits of my niece I shot and gave her parents. She is one of those children that are in constant move but she often gets adorable expressions. I took several shots when it was possible and I picked 5 of my favorites. What are your thoughts and comments? What are the things I did wrong or not well? In what aspects I can improve? In the 3 photos I used flash was with camera flash with a diffuser.

1. With grandpa


2. With mother


3. Alone


4. Alone


5. Alone

 

[jowensphoto]

I'd tone down the vignette a bit. In camera, shoot a little wider so you don't chop limbs.

Are you shooting in auto? If you change to aperture priority or manual, you can adjust your aperture to blur some of the distracting backgrounds.

How are you using your flash? Bounce?

 

[paigew]

2 is the best. You have good light on her (huge window) I would clone out the thing above the baby's head and bump up the exposure a bit. I also like #1 but I wish baby was more engaged with either the camera or grandpa.

 

[urahara]

@jowensphoto

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No I shot in Aperture priority almost always. But I don't want to risk having unfocused part of my main subject (especially the face)
For the flash I use a white difuser infront of the flash.

Thnx for your comments

 

[urahara]

@paigew
Yes that "thing" bothers me too...
I will try to remove it.

Thxn

 

[Rwsphotos]

+1 to the above. I also see some depth if field issues in #1 and #4 grandpa is slightly out of focus. And her hand us out of focus in #4. Stop your apature down a tad to increase your depth of field but not loose your bokeh.

 

[urahara]

regarding grandpa I wanted him to be slightly out of focus. He was not my subject, but I wanted to show the relationship in the picture.
For the rest I agree

 

[Rwsphotos]

I think if you wanted to show the connection needed to be in focus. Just my opnion. Now on the wanting him purposely out of focus then I would have had him completely out of focus. As it stands it looks more like missed focus or depth of field issues than been shot on purpose.

 

[urahara]

I respect your point of view, but I don't agree with the notion "if you want to do something (different) then do it big or it will seem like a fault"... like a not straight horizon, vignetting, focus etc. If I had him completly out of focus he would be more like background noise and in this case it would be best not to be there at all. I took pictures with the niece alone, I wasn't after an other one here. Grandpa here in the background, paints the idea of someone close to her looking after her, whatching her every step, I liked that when I shaw it and that was what I wanted to show in the picture, not just an other portrait. But grandpa couldn't take the first sheet here, nor I wanted him to be a protagonist in the picture. The light was good to have them both as main figures with closer aperture.. my call was that the neice should remain as the protagonist and grandpa would provide the feeling to the photo.