Gallery critique please - Maternity

tipsinartok

I posted a similar thread in the business forum but it hasn't had a lot of hits or response so I thought I'd post these here. I'm really wanting to get more practice taking pictures but we recently moved and don't live near any family and don't have a huge group of friends yet to practice on. I feel I can only learn so much taking pictures of my own daughter over and over again. So I've put together a website and I want to start actually offering services to people other than friends. I don't really feel I have any business charging anything yet, but I will spend my own time taking the pictures and editing, and I like to think I'm at least a step up from snapshots, so I will charge something lol. My target clients right now would be parents or parents-to-be who want some nice pictures of themselves and/or their kids, not people who are looking for fine art portraits to blow up and hang on the wall. I've only done one maternity/birth shoot so far, but that's something I would love to concentrate on so I do want to put some maternity pictures up. I feel like I've come a long way since then, so these are the best I have right now. These are my maternity and birth shots, I'm going to post my kid shots in another thread.

Do these look okay to post in a gallery? Are there any that I should scrap altogether? Any that stand out as being really good? No exif data, I'm just linking them directly from my site and I don't have the whole pictures online anywhere yet. (I'll be getting a Smugmug account if and when I generate any clients.)

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Should I scrap the small amount of colour on this one? To me it looks fine on it's own, but next to the rest of them it looks almost like the person is jaundiced or something... I could be overly critical though, the mom loved it.

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Kinkajou

I think 5 and 8 are the strongest of the bunch.

Some look like there is too much going on... either the background or too many elements in the image. Try to find a more simple setting for the shots with clean lighting, and get your subject(s) to wear simple clothing without designs/patterns. Also, watch your focus point. For example, the shot with the boy and his car on Mom's belly is a wonderful idea, but the strap of his overalls is in focus, not the car on her belly.

Good start, and you've definitely conveyed the love and intimacy of this family with your shots.

tipsinartok

I think 5 and 8 are the strongest of the bunch.

Some look like there is too much going on... either the background or too many elements in the image. Try to find a more simple setting for the shots with clean lighting, and get your subject(s) to wear simple clothing without designs/patterns. Also, watch your focus point. For example, the shot with the boy and his car on Mom's belly is a wonderful idea, but the strap of his overalls is in focus, not the car on her belly.

Good start, and you've definitely conveyed the love and intimacy of this family with your shots.

Thank you so much. I agree about how much is going on, especially in the ones with the baby. It was a home birth and I was just in the background watching and taking pictures and trying not to get in the way. Everyone clashed, and that couch was horrible, but unfortunately there wasn't a ton I could do besides convert them all to black and white afterwards and hope for the best. They wanted shots of everything that went on afterwards, but I guess while they probably have a lot of meaning to the family, they probably don't mean much to an observer just looking. Would I be better off really paring down the number of shots and only have two or three to start in the gallery? I wanted to show a range of pictures but it's hard when I only have one shoot to choose from and I'd only had my camera less than a month at the time.

The focal point is one I had trouble with on the maternity shoot. Do I focus on the belly or the eyes? I think I was trying to go for the boy's face in that shot, and he moved or I missed. But you're right, the car would have been a better spot. I have more experience photographing fast-moving kids now. I've also read a lot more now and looked at tons of other maternity sites, so I think I could do a way better job at this point if I could get some interest.

tipsinartok

Oh I wanted to ask too, would it be worth it for me to spend a bit of time on #5 cloning out the tree and fence behind her so that looks blown out too or would that end up being too much? The patio door coming out of her head bugs me too so I might see if I can make it look like the door keeps going over her head and clone out the part that comes down, but I may not be good enough to do that yet. I could easily get rid of the stuff in the background though if that would add to the picture.

ETA: nm, I did manage to photoshop the door out of her head. I think I did an okay job of it. I tried taking the stuff out of the background but wasn't sure if that just made the whole picture lose context, so I didn't keep it like that. Of course, my whole point with that one was trying to go for a dreamy, almost surreal look so maybe it would work.

angevin1

tipsinartok wrote:

Oh I wanted to ask too, would it be worth it for me to spend a bit of time on #5 cloning out the tree and fence behind her so that looks blown out too or would that end up being too much? The patio door coming out of her head bugs me too so I might see if I can make it look like the door keeps going over her head and clone out the part that comes down, but I may not be good enough to do that yet. I could easily get rid of the stuff in the background though if that would add to the picture.

ETA: nm, I did manage to photoshop the door out of her head. I think I did an okay job of it. I tried taking the stuff out of the background but wasn't sure if that just made the whole picture lose context, so I didn't keep it like that. Of course, my whole point with that one was trying to go for a dreamy, almost surreal look so maybe it would work.

I don't think you need to clone out the other components in #5. You're busy getting this all happening and while you do that you'll learn to adjust you, them and the camera angle to get cleaner photos so you won't have to do as much work on the final product...then you can get on with the act of pleasing yourself and others with your shots~

tipsinartok

Thank you Tom. I think one of the things I want to work on the most is keeping an eye out on my backgrounds. It's hard (especially with kids) to watch for that perfect shot but also be in the right position for the background. I know I still need a lot of practice before I get to that point.