Wise beyond his years (C&C please)

Hey guys,
Here is a shot of my 16 month old great nephew all dressed up for Thanksgiving dinner. I think he looks wise beyond his years, indeed. Any comments or constructive criticism are greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance,

George

 

I like the image, I think it would fine in sepia or b/w, but filter you added - isn't my flavor.

 

I like the idea with the high contrast, but it looks a little overdone to me- detail lost in the blacks and the bg is kinda distracting. I say reshoot- def some potential here though imo.

 

i like the shot but i have to agree the PP is a little overdone. to me it looks as if his face is dirty. just my .02

 

His face looks dirty to me as well. The woman's face in the BG is very distracting because of the crop. if you had allowed all of her face in the frame I think that it would look nicer, but where you put her face in the frame really takes away from the over all image, if you ask me.

 

Yeah, the PP makes him look dead... That kinda ruins it for me.

 

Hey guys,
Thanks for the suggestions. In this photo I am posting now, I cut back on the PP a little bit, but I think it has the same overall feel. I don't want to crop the woman in the background out entirely, but I might blur the background a bit more. I am somewhat new to Photoshop though, and I'm not sure what the best way to go about doing this is. I was using the magnetic lasso tool to select the background and then using a quick mask to refine the selection a little bit (loose hairs etc.) but whenever I applied the lens blur filter to the background, the result just looked unnatural and worse then before. I would prefer to include her, but I might just crop her out entirely. Any advice is appreciated! Also, let me know what you think about this image.

George

 

ya he face does look fity to the the high PP. intersting shot though

 

I think it prob is better with the background blurred to being unrecognizable. Here is a 5min edit to see what it would look like with no background and attempting to clean up his face a little bit. And give it some life as well.

 

big improvement over the original.

 

I appreciate your edit and all the feedback, but that is not the feel I was going for with this picture. Although he is young, the child's life has not been easy and I was trying to capture his hardships all in one image. Although you did a good job on the shot, it lacks the same emotion of the original. Thanks for all the feedback guys, it was greatly appreciated.

George

 

i think i'd have to agree with the OP, while the edit looks nice i think it loses the original feel of the first photo. great capture, you don't normally see shots of little kids looking anything but happy. its an interesting twist :thumbup: