Ok guy been using a DSLR for less than a month.

[jamesparker1250]

Just got warm enough to get kids outside to get some pictures trying out my 50mm 1.8 this is my favorate picture of the bunch. I know the shovel in the back ground is distraction but what do you guys think.

 

[Gavjenks]

Yes the shovel is distracting.

More of an issue is that this looks like a photo of a refugee or something. It's really gray and a little desaturated looking, and she's sort of huddled outdoors with an uncomfortable expression looking wary of the photographer.

What was the goal here? Mood, etc.?

 

[PropilotBW]

Yes the shovel is distracting.

More of an issue is that this looks like a photo of a refugee or something. It's really gray and a little desaturated looking, and she's sort of huddled outdoors with an uncomfortable expression looking wary of the photographer.

What was the goal here? Mood, etc.?

looks like a candid shot of a child to me. Not bad. Looks like the focus on the eyes is pretty decent and the composition isn't bad. I would have tried not to cut off her lower body, though

 

[bribrius]

Not bad. could be better. what lens you using? what camera settings?

 

[vintagesnaps]

I'd think about the framing, if this might have been better vertical, or horizontal with more of the child showing to not look too cut off. Besides moving the shovel next time, or moving around and changing your vantage point, you might need to arrange the hair, especially if kids have been outside running around playing. I wondered if the child was squinting, maybe facing a different direction or taking the picture at a different time of day could help eliminate that.

 

[jamesparker1250]

Nikon 50mm f/1.8G AF-S NIKKOR FX Lens. On that day I was just fooling around trying to get some practice with it. Think my Aperture was 1.8

 

[robbins.photo]

Nikon 50mm f/1.8G AF-S NIKKOR FX Lens. On that day I was just fooling around trying to get some practice with it. Think my Aperture was 1.8

It's very good for an initial effort. Keeping in mind that I don't really do C&C, just a couple of thoughts. Since your dealing with a portrait here you have a lot of control over the situation and plenty of time to consider your options before you take the picture. So first, consider your background. In this case of course the shovel has already been mentioned, easy enough to move it. But consider the rest of the background, does it really add any interest to the photo? If not consider a couple of options, first shooting vertical so your subject fills more of the frame. Even if it's not shot vertical you can still crop it so it's square and reduce the amount of visible background.

In this case the background is fairly well blurred but not much in the way of interesting objects, colors, patterns or shapes. So I'd look at recropping this one so the subject fills most of the frame. For future shots think about your background first, try to look for backgrounds that will add some interest or some color even if you are shooting at wider apertures and going for bokeh.

Just a couple of quick thoughts of course, hopefully that helps.

 

[bribrius]

Nikon 50mm f/1.8G AF-S NIKKOR FX Lens. On that day I was just fooling around trying to get some practice with it. Think my Aperture was 1.8

i just posted a photo of one of my kids on another thread in the people section to see if it would help you. maybe it will help you, maybe not. It isn't a perfect photo and im not a pro. hopefully somehow it does. clothing, the blue jacket goes with the blue eyes. The snow drowns out to a background. simple background, uniform colors. Nothing in the background distracting. It was afternoon so the sun wasnt direct sunlight, it also reflected off the snow which helped but i was always told early morning sun is the most forgiving and afternoon maybe the second, over head not helpful least for portrait types.
Photo taken at iso 1250 (no direct sunlight) 120mm f 25 +.7 exposure (account for the snow) 1/120s with a 18-140 kit lens. so i imagine your lense should be able to do better than this one.

im curious to know what you aperature was at and a less distracting background and good uniform colors might help you for next time. if you blurred out the background a little or had less in the background it might have helped.
im not a pro though. And really without seeing exactly you saw when you took the photo and the light it would almost be guessing. Did you have it on manual , auto or aperature? For some reason im thinking part of your problem here could be the lighting and how close you were compared to where the lens is happiest. It just doesnt quite seem to stand out as good but it isn't really out of focus so...
Perhaps someone with more experience than myself can chime in and be more helpful.

 

[jamesparker1250]

Just remember I said it just got warm enough to take the kids out. We got a ton of snow melting in our yard its not nothing but a muddy mess outside and I didn't have no where for her to sit down. I know when spring arrive I will be able to take her to the city park and get a lot better pictures. Plus remember I said I was just messing around with my Nikon 50mm prime lens trying out bokeh.

 

[Braineack]

In the least you need to work on your framing. Subject is only taking up about 40% of the frame and the rest is an uninteresting background.



Beyond that, the photo needed to be sharpened and warmed up.

Keep practicing.

 

[paigew]

Just got warm enough to get kids outside to get some pictures trying out my 50mm 1.8 this is my favorate picture of the bunch. I know the shovel in the back ground is distraction but what do you guys think.View attachment 68463

scoot back, let us see her legs! Let the step and column act as a frame for her. If you would have moved a bit in front of her you could have avoided having the shovel in the shot.

 

[Derrel]

Just got warm enough to get kids outside to get some pictures trying out my 50mm 1.8 this is my favorate picture of the bunch. I know the shovel in the back ground is distraction but what do you guys think.View attachment 68463

scoot back, let us see her legs! Let the step and column act as a frame for her. If you would have moved a bit in front of her you could have avoided having the shovel in the shot.

This!!!!! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

A couple of big steps to your left would have eliminated the shovel.

Now, from a purely documentary point of view, the snow shovel being there sort of frames the time of year, just like winter trees or fall leaves are seasonal clues in many family photos. But, for the most part, people tend to like "clean" backgrounds. One easy way to make backgrounds LESS of a hassle is to shoot these kinds of kid pics using a longer focal length lens, which will magnify the size of the kid in the frame AND, this is the key--it also has a narrower angle of view BEHIND THE SUBJECT, given the same-sized head in the frame.

If you shoot from close-up with a 24mm lens, you get a LOT of angular view behind the subject. If you move twice as far back and use a 50mm lens, you get much less angular view behind the subject. If you have an 85mm on crop-sensor, it acts similarly to a 135 on full-frame, and it has a very narrow angle of view behind subjects. When taking pictures of people, the background can often make or break the shot.

 

[Newtricks]

A couple of big steps to your left would have eliminated the shovel.

Seeing the shovel after framing the shot, walking back there and kicking out of view would have done it.

 

[Derrel]

A couple of big steps to your left would have eliminated the shovel.

Seeing the shovel after framing the shot, walking back there and kicking out of view would have done it.

Yes. That is called "cleaning up the background". When my son was little, he was holy hell as far as creating clutter and a path of messiness behind him. I shot thousands of photos of him on our back patio, a huge double-decker masonry and concrete affair that was about 45 feet long on top and 65 feet on the bottom level. So, 105 feet of background that could be filled with any number of kid-messes, toys, wagon, chalk, empty plastic bottles, rags, shirts, trains, whatever...I often "cleaned up the background" before photographing because there was stuff that looked cluttery. Real life is messy and has "stuff lying about", so you either frame around it, or physically move the stuff, or leave it in the frame.

"Background control" is one of the hallmarks of really serious, capable portrait and family photographers. It's a major part of making people pictures. Sometimes you really WANT TO LEAVE stuff where it really is or was or where it belongs, as a way to show the real, true environment. But mostly, people prefer clean, uncluttered, smooth backgrounds. Learning to SEE through the camera eyepiece, and to "SEE" the background, not just the subject, is one of the things I think beginning shooters need to really,really work on getting good at. It's easy to look at just the person, but it's critical to actually "see" the entire area the camera will show, and get things right in-camera.

 

[Civchic]

Learning to SEE through the camera eyepiece, and to "SEE" the background, not just the subject, is one of the things I think beginning shooters need to really,really work on getting good at. It's easy to look at just the person, but it's critical to actually "see" the entire area the camera will show, and get things right in-camera.

This is a great quote, and really difficult to learn (surprisingly)! I have relegated a lot of pictures of my kids to "hard drive only" or "collage page" of the photo album because of not being able to see the whole seen until after the picture is out of the camera on the computer. I've started concentrating more on this aspect.