Wise beyond his years (C&C please)

[G. Ike]

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

 

[IgsEMT]

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

 

[pointedem]

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.

 

[Jankster]

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

 

[jpeters]

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.

 

[Josh66]

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

 

[G. Ike]

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

 

[dak1b]

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

 

[ranmyaku]

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.

 

[WimFoto]

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

big improvement over the original.

 

[G. Ike]

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

 

[sayhitokatie]

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:

 

[JCphoto]

It looks like you were going for a type of Dragan Effect here, which is a nice effect in some cases, but I think it generally works best with textured skin (i.e. a homeless man with harsh weathered skin etc.) in these cases the 'dirty face' effect can be effective, but I think when dealing with a small soft skinned boy the effect causes some confusion. I understand where you are trying to go, but the boy is just too cute for us to pick-up on the idea of 'hardship', although I do really like the expression you have captured.

I think I would remove the woman in the background, I like the way she's looking at the boy, but she is just too crammed into the edge and I find it really pulls the eye over to the right, which detracts from the subtle expression on the boy's face, I find ranmyaku's edit allows the viewer to focus on the boys beautiful deep eyes, which are the focal point of the image.

But that's just my opinion. Regardless of your final edit, you've captured an excellent expression in some nice light, so either way you have a nice photograph.

JC

 

[jdapho]

Your great nephew does look wise beyond his years and his expression tells it all. Very nice shot! I didn't care for the PP you did originally, but much prefer the toned down version.

I hope you don't mind, but I did a little editing to try to reduce the appearance of the woman since you didn't want to remove her completely yet she did distract from the boy.

 

[G. Ike]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I see what you mean about the style of processing working on more weathered skin, but I liked it here alot. Thanks for the edit, jdaphoto! I like what you did with the background.

George