Christmas eve piano carols

mpaulie

Hi all,
I haven't posted photos here in a while and wanted to get some critic on a few of my latest shots of my wife playing some carols on Christmas eve... composition, balance, contrast, etc. Finally stepped up to a dSLR and just got the D90 a couple of weeks ago, still getting used to everything. I think all of these are ISO 3200 from very low light. I was also thinking of making a diptych out of a couple of these but know which two, what do you think?

Thanks for looking!
P.S. sorry for the small res, flickr has either this size or a size that is too big.

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JustPlainMe

In the same boat
I am brand-new with a DSLR as well. I've had mine for two weeks.

I don't know that these work as well in B&W, I don't know why. Maybe it's that the contrast isn't high enough, especially in the midtones. Her hands seem lost in the white of the keys. The most pleasing to me was the 3rd one where her hands jump out more against the dark wood of the piano, and the composition is better with the interesting angle and the visible distressing of the console. (These are such newbie comments! I don't even know how to say what I'm thinking!) What would be even lovelier would be a shot with a slower shutter, maybe 1" or 1.5", at a sharper angle (showing more console and keyboard and a smaller DOF with either end of the keyboard blurry) to show the movement of her hands. Part of loving watching people play is seeing the movement of their hands over the keys.

As for a diptych, as far as design goes, could you do a triptych instead? Your wife in the middle, just hands on one side, music and hands on the other, or just hands on both sides. An odd number would probably make a more pleasing balance to the eye. Please take these with a grain of salt! This is my first post. :ivar

Sarah

roentarre

Very crafty in deed. Good angles and crops

divamum

I like these!

A couple of small comments:

#2 If you clone out the two small items on the wall (near the ceiling) you'll be left with a clearer background that throws the attention back on to the main subject.

#4 Have you considered cropping out the ornaments etc on the top of the piano? It would leave a cleaner picture, and the piano itself will provide a nice frame for the music and face.

Also, you might want to play around with different kinds of black and white to see what different contrasts and colours might do to it, almost like "filters" of old. There loads of examples here at dgrin (the wedding forum in particular seems to be a wealth of processing choices to look at) and I'm sure it will give you some ideas for things you can do as you get more used to your camera and post-processing digitally.

Fun series!

Cuties02q

I really like the shots but I agree maybe a different b&w conversion would look better

mpaulie

Thanks so much everyone, you're all right, I need to make these more contrasty and less gray. It's amazing looking at these again I don't know how I didn't notice just how gray and blah some of these are. When I converted them they looked like they had pretty good contrast.

JustPlainMe - newbie or not you make some good points and I really appreciate your ideas and input!

divamum - you're right on #2 the background is too distracting and on 4 the top of the piano is distracting too. I'll take a look in the wedding forum for some good black and white techniques. If anyone has any that work please feel free to provide a link.

Again, thanks for all the input!