b&w snapshots

lizzard_nyc

My sister and my niece came over for a visit today, when they plopped down on my bed, I grabbed my camera.
c&c welcome.

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5.

ivar

Oooh, very cool!

I really love 1 and 4: Both mom and daughter smiley and natural.

2 is less of a favorite to me, mainly because the little girl doesn't seem to be all that happy, and the expression of her mom. Also, all that black in your niece's right eye (left for the viewers at home) bothers me a bit.

3 is pretty cool, but it seems like your niece is not looking at your sister?

5 just seems like a really nice candid; Mom enjoying her daughter.

lizzard_nyc

HI Ivar,
Thanks for the reply, I thought they were pretty cool too:D .

I have a favorite myself--#5, even though mom is darker and more out of focus--I just love that photo and I think it's one of my sister's favorite.

BTW--the reason why both are bursting out laughin in #4 is because the evil mom is tickling her helpless child--lol--

I will keep practicing.

Flyinggina

I love these. You captured wonderful interactions between the two. I like the more serious one as well as the others. Babies don't smile all the time, and for sure their mother's don't. The grainy b&w is perfect for these. I agree with Ivar. ## 1 and 4 , especially #4 are my favorites.

Virginia

PS. Too bad #4 is not SOOC. It would make a possible entry in the current challenge.

lizzard_nyc

Flyinggina wrote:

I love these. You captured wonderful interactions between the two. I like the more serious one as well as the others. Babies don't smile all the time, and for sure their mother's don't. The grainy b&w is perfect for these. I agree with Ivar. ## 1 and 4 , especially #4 are my favorites.

Virginia

PS. Too bad #4 is not SOOC. It would make a possible entry in the current challenge.

Hi Virginia,
These are all SOOC I love my Olympus E620. I just didn't know if there was enough for the movement theme. Hmmmm now you got me thinking.

Ok I will post my actual 2 favorites from the batch, but I didn't post them before because I felt they were too dark--but I love them and I"m feeling encouraged.

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8. This one maybe more for the "movement" challenge--tentative title "tickle tickle"--I might just post it in the challenge thread to get more feedback too. THanks for the idea.

adbsgicom

Interesting mood you created with the grain. FWIW, I like #5 more for the challenge. More of a sense of movement (away and out of the frame).

bdcolen

ivar wrote:

Oooh, very cool!

I really love 1 and 4: Both mom and daughter smiley and natural.

2 is less of a favorite to me, mainly because the little girl doesn't seem to be all that happy, and the expression of her mom. Also, all that black in your niece's right eye (left for the viewers at home) bothers me a bit.

There are some wonderful, natural shots here. But I'd like to comment specifically on Ivar's comment about #2:

I agree completely that this one doesn't work - but the only reason it doesn't work is the weird expression on the mother's face. (It's really a distortion of her face, rather than what we'd think of as an expression.) There is nothing, however, wrong with the fact that the little girl "doesn't seem to be all that happy." Sometimes we are happy, and sometimes we are sad. Some times we appear to be engaged, and sometimes we appear to be drifting. And so it is with children. If we are going to produce meaningful images of people - as opposed to commissioned work of grinning tots (which are great, if that's what the client wants ) - we should be recording all those different expressions and moments, and should judge each image as an image, and not by whether we have yet another shot of a grinning child.

IMHO.

lizzard_nyc

bdcolen wrote:

There are some wonderful, natural shots here. But I'd like to comment specifically on Ivar's comment about #2:

I agree completely that this one doesn't work - but the only reason it doesn't work is the weird expression on the mother's face. (It's really a distortion of her face, rather than what we'd think of as an expression.) There is nothing, however, wrong with the fact that the little girl "doesn't seem to be all that happy." Sometimes we are happy, and sometimes we are sad. Some times we appear to be engaged, and sometimes we appear to be drifting. And so it is with children. If we are going to produce meaningful images of people - as opposed to commissioned work of grinning tots (which are great, if that's what the client wants ) - we should be recording all those different expressions and moments, and should judge each image as an image, and not by whether we have yet another shot of a grinning child.

IMHO.

Hi BD,
glad you like them.
I hear what you are saying about the always smiling posed child--I've been fighting that urge to pose my children or niece--or to only get them smiling--it's not been easy as I think I've been preconditioned to only get pretty smiling baby shots.

My favorite photos though have always been the Christmas pics with Santa where the child is screaming their heads off and you can see their tonsils.

So I will work on capturing all emotions.

bdcolen

lizzard_nyc wrote:

Hi BD,
glad you like them.
I hear what you are saying about the always smiling posed child--I've been fighting that urge to pose my children or niece--or to only get them smiling--it's not been easy as I think I've been preconditioned to only get pretty smiling baby shots.

My favorite photos though have always been the Christmas pics with Santa where the child is screaming their heads off and you can see their tonsils.

So I will work on capturing all emotions.

Smiling is good. Happy is good. But reflective, pensive, sad, distraught, angry, confused, pensive, are also worth capturing. I like the child's expression in #2 - it's interesting. But I also like the happy shots, and I like them because they are real.