First baby shots

divamum

All C&C of course welcomed.

I decided that these might be better with a title since there's no real "story" to see in them - jes' baby portraits :wink

These were basically grabshots at a family function and although the light was gorgeous, the timing was poor since the little guy was getting tired and not entirely convinced that having crazy cyclops lady snapping away at him was his idea of a fun, but it was a good chance to practice seeing what I could come up with on a subject who had NO interest whatsoever in the project. I may have a toddler shoot on the cards at some point, so I was very happy to have a chance to practice (and my hat is off to all you wonderful kid-shooters - I knew it would be tricky, but it's even harder than I thought it would be...!!)

Btw, if you look closely at the catchlights, you can see that it's the remnants of daylight above a ridge of trees. I actually had to clone out the pinpoint dot of the setting sun, because it looked like onboard flash (it wasn't - these were 100% natural light, no fill, no reflector, no nothing)

sweet caroline

The expressions are sweet. I'm not sure about the haziness. I'm wanting more contrast, especially in the first one. On the first one, it looks a little weird that the tips of the ears touch the edge of the frame. It makes the head shape look strange. An adjustment to the crop could fix that, I think. Gorgeous eyes.

divamum

sweet caroline wrote:

The expressions are sweet. I'm not sure about the haziness. I'm wanting more contrast, especially in the first one. On the first one, it looks a little weird that the tips of the ears touch the edge of the frame. It makes the head shape look strange. An adjustment to the crop could fix that, I think. Gorgeous eyes.

Thanks Caroline. The haze in the first was as much vignette as anything else. I'm stuck with the crop alas, but here's some different processing. Any better? I'm trying to bring out his eyes without becoming totally "alien baby", and am finding it a difficult balance...!!!

richtersl

I love #2. There's something very "vintage Olan Mills" about it.

Flutist

divamum wrote:

Thanks Caroline. The haze in the first was as much vignette as anything else. I'm stuck with the crop alas, but here's some different processing. Any better? I'm trying to bring out his eyes without becoming totally "alien baby", and am finding it a difficult balance...!!!

I love what Frank (Trevlan) does with eyes and hope he doesn't mind my sharing his secrets, but he just does a 10% dodge on the midtones of the eyes, and it's just enough to make them pop with that "alien" look you mention.

Cute baby!

the second edit looks a it has a little bit of a green cast on it, anyone else see this?

bendruckerphoto

Much better w/out the vignette.

Ed911

Flutist wrote:

I love what Frank (Trevlan) does with eyes and hope he doesn't mind my sharing his secrets, but he just does a 10% dodge on the midtones of the eyes, and it's just enough to make them pop with that "alien" look you mention.

Cute baby!

the second edit looks a it has a little bit of a green cast on it, anyone else see this?

I don't see the green...but then my laptop monitor isn't calibrated.

Using the dodge tool to enhance the eyes is no secret. It's one of the first things you learn in portrait photography. I've tried other methods that come in handy from time to time...but if you have a good eye shot with the right light...the dodge tool works great.

Just be careful not to over brighten the eyes and of course, don't over brighten the teeth...once you go beyond natural...it becomes a distration.

Modern photography is a balance between technique and trickery, aka post processing. The better your technique, the less you need trickery.

Flutist

Ed911 wrote:

I don't see the green...but then my laptop monitor isn't calibrated.

Using the dodge tool to enhance the eyes is no secret. It's one of the first things you learn in portrait photography. I've tried other methods that come in handy from time to time...but if you have a good eye shot with the right light...the dodge tool works great.

Just be careful not to over brighten the eyes and of course, don't over brighten the teeth...once you go beyond natural...it becomes a distration.

Modern photography is a balance between technique and trickery, aka post processing. The better your technique, the less you need trickery.

well it was a secret to me till he told me

sweet caroline

Yes, Diva, I like your re-edit. And the crop doesn't bother me as much in this version, I think because I'm so pulled in my the eyes.

divamum

richtersl wrote:

I love #2. There's something very "vintage Olan Mills" about it.

YAY! That's kind of what I was going for (well, not "Olan Mills" per se, but a classic bw vintage-ish sort of portrait ). Thanks!!

divamum

Thanks, Ben, Shannon and Ed!!

The eyes have had some dodging and burning, and I will often then use a screen blend on the eye layer, so it's just a case of (pun intended) "eyeballing" it until I get the right balance. With such huge peepers as this guy has - especially with the interesting catchlight - I find it hard to judge how much is too much while I'm working on it... I get a little carried away with my own Photoshop omnipotence...

The green tint might be the result of the vintage-y preset I used on this - it definitely tweaked the colour balance a little, so it could well look green on some monitors.

divamum

sweet caroline wrote:

Yes, Diva, I like your re-edit. And the crop doesn't bother me as much in this version, I think because I'm so pulled in my the eyes.

Excellent -t hat's the effect I want! Thanks for the feedback