My first attempt at professional photos...

Crispin

Greetings all.

I was asked today to take some pics of my girlfriends nephew.
They wanted them for framing and handing out to family. No Pressure

See my favorite attached.
See the gallery of them at http://crispin.smugmug.com/gallery/1072037

PLEASE, any comments are welcome.
The only thing I wish I had was a decent backdrop. :dunno

ivar

Crispin wrote:

Greetings all.

I was asked today to take some pics of my girlfriends nephew.
They wanted them for framing and handing out to family. No Pressure

See my favorite attached.
See the gallery of them at http://crispin.smugmug.com/gallery/1072037

PLEASE, any comments are welcome.
The only thing I wish I had was a decent backdrop.

Nice shots

My personal preference actually goes to this one:



Mainly because there is "more to see". The one in your post, allthough nice, just shows the eyes, nose and ear to look at due to the cloth and blurred outside.
Also, i like the structure of the rug in combination with his hair.

Ivar.

ows4428

Great shots. I love this one, maybe because I have a two-week-old daughter and I love when her personality comes out.



brian

erich6

You did a nice job Crispin. I know how you felt with this "assignment". I recently did the same thing for a friend and I was very worried that I wouldn't get it right.

I like the one you picked as your favorite but also the one Ivar pointed out. It's a good toning effect and I agree with the way the background works. Something about the crop though seems like it could be improved. A bit more from the bottom and less from the top would improve it I think.

Congrats and good luck to you on additional shoots.

Erich

Crispin

Thanks all for the comments! Makes me feel a bit better
I've now got another assignment. More nerves...

Ivar and Erich, I agree. The shot does give more to the eyes. The reason I chose the other one was sheer simplicity.

Thanks again...

Justiceiro

Crispin wrote:

Thanks all for the comments! Makes me feel a bit better
I've now got another assignment. More nerves...

Ivar and Erich, I agree. The shot does give more to the eyes. The reason I chose the other one was sheer simplicity.

Thanks again...

Great shots Crispin! How did you get the softness around the edges of these photos. Was that a PS effect. It really works.

I was asked to do something similar for a friend this christmas as well, for some older kids (4, 6, ad 9). She liked the shots, but they all seemed a bit "hard-edged" to me.

Coudl you tell us a bit about the setup? How you did the lighting and everything? I would find that quite interesting.

Jnichols

Crispin wrote:

Thanks all for the comments! Makes me feel a bit better
I've now got another assignment. More nerves...

Ivar and Erich, I agree. The shot does give more to the eyes. The reason I chose the other one was sheer simplicity.

Thanks again...

I understand your draw towards the first picture you posted - I'm drawn towards that one too - very simple and dreamy... You did a great job!

DavidTO

ows4428 wrote:

Great shots. I love this one, maybe because I have a two-week-old daughter and I love when her personality comes out.



brian

Yes

GoBlue!

Great!
Great images!

I'm no expert portrait/baby/child photographer, but one thing you may try is really getting onto the same level as the child. A few of the images have me feeling like I'm towering over the baby, and it's a bit uncomfortable. Either get right down with the camera a couple inches off the ground, or raise the child up to a more comfortable level for you.

Overall, I love them. Great job!

Jim

Crispin

Justiceiro wrote:

Great shots Crispin! How did you get the softness around the edges of these photos. Was that a PS effect. It really works.

I was asked to do something similar for a friend this christmas as well, for some older kids (4, 6, ad 9). She liked the shots, but they all seemed a bit "hard-edged" to me.

Coudl you tell us a bit about the setup? How you did the lighting and everything? I would find that quite interesting.

The setup was really difficult. Lighting was the worst. All I did was open the curtain

Seriously though, nothing was planned. It was in my lounge which has a huge window. Other than that, all I had was my SB600 mounted on camera.
What I did find was the fist couple pics with the flash using iTTL seemed very "flashy". Lots of highlights and washed out areas. Trimming it down did not help either. I then changed the flash to manual, pull power, and pointed it at the roof. Very high, white, ceiling. The effect was much nicer and warmer.

As for the PP, I removed some rashes that he had and used Picasa to make cepia, B&W and soft focus.

In all honesty, I think the shoot involed 1 part wishing, 1 part hoping, i part attempting and 7 parts luck .

Thanks though for the comments! Makes me feel better about doing it again...

Crispin

GoBlue! wrote:

Great images!

I'm no expert portrait/baby/child photographer, but one thing you may try is really getting onto the same level as the child. A few of the images have me feeling like I'm towering over the baby, and it's a bit uncomfortable. Either get right down with the camera a couple inches off the ground, or raise the child up to a more comfortable level for you.

Overall, I love them. Great job!

Jim

Very true... In a couple, not posted as I stil need to do some PP, I was actualy under the table amongst the chairs. Small lounge

Next time...

Thanks to all for comments

DavidTO

By any comments welcome, I hope you don't mind me posting an alternate way of processing one of the image.

I set a black point in the pupil of the eye, and then used LAB (because I'm comfortable with it, but you could use RGB) to lower the yellow cast.

Crispin

DavidTO wrote:

By any comments welcome, I hope you don't mind me posting an alternate way of processing one of the image.

I set a black point in the pupil of the eye, and then used LAB (because I'm comfortable with it, but you could use RGB) to lower the yellow cast.

I like the picture overall but think the eyes are two black. They jumped out at me and, to me, kept distracting me from the rest of the face though.

I had a brief look at the tutorial and will try play with it. Thanks!

DavidTO

Crispin wrote:

I like the picture overall but think the eyes are two black. They jumped out at me and, to me, kept distracting me from the rest of the face though.

I had a brief look at the tutorial and will try play with it. Thanks!

Cool. Every picture needs a black point. The exact setting of that black point is actually not exact. You would think that setting a black point would mean R0G0B0, true black. Up in Yosemite the pro Marc Meunch suggested changing the prefs for your black point dropper to R6G6B6, to allow a little slop room and make sure that you didn't completely crush any blacks.

Art Scott

GREAT WORK......KEEP IT UP.

Photosbychuck

I agree with Jim so, that might be something you want to try next time.
Very nice photos!

Take Care,
Chuck