Gallery critique please - Kids

tipsinartok · September 30, 2009

Similar to my maternity pictures thread, I plan to put these in a gallery on my website geared towards parents and expectant parents who are wanting some pictures of themselves and/or their kids that are a step up from snap shots, but not to people who are looking for fine art prints to blow up and hang on the wall. I've had my dslr about 9 months now, but for a while wasn't get much of a chance to practice and we only have a very small group of friends here so I don't have a lot of different kids to try things on. I didn't want to use only picture of my daughter and a friend's son over and over so some of these are older and I know I can do better now, but are they good enough for a gallery for my purposes? Any that I should do some further pp on or get rid of altogether? No exif data, I don't have the original pictures online right now. (I know one thing I need to become more aware of are my backgrounds, and it is something I've been trying to work on! I find it hard with kids sometimes because opportunities seem to present themselves and by the time I've moved to get a better background the opportunity was lost.)

ETA: Did some further pp on most of these and took a few out. Of the ones left, are there any more I should still take off altogether even after additional pp?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

7.

ETA: I changed this one to b&w and underexposed the background a lot more.

9.

10.

Qarik · September 30, 2009

#9 is a keeper with some post processing. The rest..not so much. To be honest I don't know if that is sucha great business model. I see what you are getting at but many may just assume "Professional Photographer" and then maybe dissapointed with the results. This may harm your reputation as you get better.

rainbow · September 30, 2009

I like many of the poses/faces that you shot. Seems as if the children respond well to you pointing the camera at them.

The PP does not match the shots. Some of them look rough or heavily cropped as they do not show well on my monitor. #4 is the exception to this. Also, some of the lighting levels maybe can be improved. I would play with these a little more.

Thanks for sharing. Hope this feedback is helpful.

kidzmom · September 30, 2009

Hi!
I'm also new to the DSLR world and also a Mom with young kids. Kids are DEFINATELY fun to take pictures of and I completely agree with your comment about missing the moment when wanting to "better" the shot. I agree with the previous poster that the kids seem to respond well to your camera! This is definately a HUGE factor in your favor.
In my opinion #4 and #9 are your big winners! The others do look a bit over processed/ or lacking color accuracy. I am also struggling with this myself and am tremendously critical of my finished products. I liked the expression in #2, but I can't put my finger on it (maybe over exposed?). I love the girl in #3 but her face isn't in focus. It is SO frustrating (I know) to have the shot "almost" perfect but have something missing that the professional eye can easily spot. I've come here to hopefully better my own eye and skills! Thanks for posting these fun pictures! Keep up the great work

Kelly

tipsinartok · September 30, 2009

#9 is a keeper with some post processing. The rest..not so much. To be honest I don't know if that is sucha great business model. I see what you are getting at but many may just assume "Professional Photographer" and then maybe dissapointed with the results. This may harm your reputation as you get better.

Thank you, I've worked a bit on #9 since I got some positive response on it. I guess I worry about over-processing though. I thought it was pretty common to have different "levels" of photographers. I will make it clear on my website I'm an amateur looking for practice. When my daughter sees the camera now, she either turns away and doesn't want anything to do with it, or she sits perfectly still and makes it easy. But neither are good ways for me to practice and learn, I need new models and don't know any other way to get them since we have such a small group of people we know here. I don't plan on charging much, and if the customer isn't happy I won't make them pay but I'll still walk away with pictures for my portfolio.

Is it better to have a very small number of pictures in the gallery that are very good but of the same kids, or a bit more variety, some of which may not be quite the level as the others? Like I said in my first post, a lot of these shots are older and I think some might even be with my S5-IS instead of my DSLR. All my newer ones are of my daughter or that last baby.

like many of the poses/faces that you shot. Seems as if the children respond well to you pointing the camera at them.

The PP does not match the shots. Some of them look rough or heavily cropped as they do not show well on my monitor. #4 is the exception to this. Also, some of the lighting levels maybe can be improved. I would play with these a little more.

Thank you, I love photographing kids and I do have so much fun with them. I wonder if the roughness is due to the low res? I wasn't sure if I should post higher res ones, but these are how they will look in the gallery so I thought to go with these ones. Are you saying the crops are too tight? I think I'm guilty of liking really tight crops on most of my pictures, but I know it doesn't always work. I'll play with them a bit more.

I think lighting is definitely an area I can improve, and since many of these shots were taken I've acquired an external flash and have been trying to practice with it. I want to borrow/buy Understanding Exposure again and reread that too. I had a bit of a break over the summer where I was feeling unmotivated and discouraged with photography, but I'm really feeling motivated now to get back into it. I just need kids to practice on. My kid is almost too easy now, she doesn't move when she knows I want her picture (and she's feeling cooperative).

I'm also new to the DSLR world and also a Mom with young kids. Kids are DEFINATELY fun to take pictures of and I completely agree with your comment about missing the moment when wanting to "better" the shot. I agree with the previous poster that the kids seem to respond well to your camera! This is definately a HUGE factor in your favor.
In my opinion #4 and #9 are your big winners! The others do look a bit over processed/ or lacking color accuracy. I am also struggling with this myself and am tremendously critical of my finished products. I liked the expression in #2, but I can't put my finger on it (maybe over exposed?). I love the girl in #3 but her face isn't in focus. It is SO frustrating (I know) to have the shot "almost" perfect but have something missing that the professional eye can easily spot. I've come here to hopefully better my own eye and skills! Thanks for posting these fun pictures! Keep up the great work

Thank you! Post-processing is definitely a place I want to practice on. I actually had a friend ask me to process some of her photos and thought it would be great practice, until I realized how many of her pictures were over/under-exposed, tiny subjects way in the background, blurry, etc., and she was hoping I could fix all of that. I find there's a line before over-processing that just looks over-processed, and photos that it's obvious they're processed but they still look natural, if you know what I mean.

I downloaded an action that I've seen recommended her a lot and was playing around with it a little bit. I redid #9 just for fun, but does it look overly processed now? (Obviously it needs to be cropped at the top more, but I'm curious about the pp for colour, etc.)

ivar · September 30, 2009

tipsinartok wrote:

I downloaded an action that I've seen recommended her a lot and was playing around with it a little bit. I redid #9 just for fun, but does it look overly processed now? (Obviously it needs to be cropped at the top more, but I'm curious about the pp for colour, etc.)

It seems a bit warm, but otherwise it looks fine. I'd not crop it any more, it looks a lot better than the one you poster originally if you ask me. It's not bad to have a bit of space around a person. Also remember that if you print a photo, you're going to lose a bit on all sides as well

tipsinartok · September 30, 2009

Thank you Ivar. I don't know why I'm obsessed with cropping in as close as I can. I think with some of the older shots it's because I used to put the eyes right smack in the middle and now that I know better I'm trying to compensate for that with cropping.

I've redone some of the others with different pp methods, focusing on colour balance and exposure a little more, running my action, and changing some of the cropping too. I uploaded them to my gallery, and because I took these pictures directly from there the new ones are up top now too. I almost feel like using an action is cheating though, I don't know why.

I've actually had this action for a while but besides playing a bit, I've never really used it. But I'm loving the results I'm getting with it. I guess I feel I should be able to get shots like this straight out of camera. I guess that's what practice is for though.

rainbow · September 30, 2009

tipsinartok wrote:

Thank you Ivar. I don't know why I'm obsessed with cropping in as close as I can. I think with some of the older shots it's because I used to put the eyes right smack in the middle and now that I know better I'm trying to compensate for that with cropping.

I've redone some of the others with different pp methods, focusing on colour balance and exposure a little more, running my action, and changing some of the cropping too. I uploaded them to my gallery, and because I took these pictures directly from there the new ones are up top now too. I almost feel like using an action is cheating though, I don't know why. I've actually had this action for a while but besides playing a bit, I've never really used it. But I'm loving the results I'm getting with it. I guess I feel I should be able to get shots like this straight out of camera. I guess that's what practice is for though.

I like the new processing better.

I suggest that you rethink PP and the thought that you are "cheating". Every photo has PP, whether it is you or the manufacturer deciding on the parameters that would be adjusted. This is equivalent to being in the darkroom with film, but much easier.

For example, if you chose a picture mode on the camera (portrait, or landscape, etc.), you are making some decisions on PP (landscapes might emphasize the greens and blues, portrait might shift it slightly warmer on the skin tones). So since you are not sending it to a one hour photo or Kodak to develop the film and make the prints, you are now the decision-maker. That is one likely reason that Canon includes their DPP program with their DSLR cameras. So do not be afraid to white balance it a little as well as make it brighter or darker or increase the contrast as the bare minimum PP.

BTW, in your response to my earlier post, I do not think you are cropping too tightly. I think the low resolution posting is what is making some of the photos look worse than they are.

tipsinartok · September 30, 2009

rainbow wrote:

I like the new processing better.

I suggest that you rethink PP and the thought that you are "cheating". Every photo has PP, whether it is you or the manufacturer deciding on the parameters that would be adjusted. This is equivalent to being in the darkroom with film, but much easier.

For example, if you chose a picture mode on the camera (portrait, or landscape, etc.), you are making some decisions on PP (landscapes might emphasize the greens and blues, portrait might shift it slightly warmer on the skin tones). So since you are not sending it to a one hour photo or Kodak to develop the film and make the prints, you are now the decision-maker. That is one likely reason that Canon includes their DPP program with their DSLR cameras. So do not be afraid to white balance it a little as well as make it brighter or darker or increase the contrast as the bare minimum PP.

BTW, in your response to my earlier post, I do not think you are cropping too tightly. I think the low resolution posting is what is making some of the photos look worse than they are.

Thank you again! I really appreciate the responses.

And to clarify, it's not the PP itself I think (thought) is cheating. It's using an action.

I don't even know why and it's not that I thought it was bad, I just felt like I should be able to do it all myself. Does that make sense? I'm fully aware that there is no good reason for it, and that without using actions doing mass quantities of pictures is very time consuming. Actually sitting down and figuring out how to do it today gave me not only better end results, but it's so much faster. I've still been going through and adjusting colours, exposure, white balance, etc, manually ahead of time, but I've never used the batch features before and they're fantastic!

Gallery critique please - Kids

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