A meaningful hug

WrenTheBlurry · February 20, 2007

Hello!

I spent the last month uploading a ginormous amount of pictures to my new Smugmug site (hey, is there a contest for most pics uploaded in the shortest amount of time? :P), and now that that's done, I've enjoyed looking over the photos ya'll have taken, and commenting some times.

People are my favorite subject, and so I expect I'll be hanging out in this forum a lot. Before I stick my picture in here, I should preface that I am a newbie. A real, wow-why-doesn't-she-take-a-class-or-something newbie. My post-processing skills are nearly non-existant. The green square (ultra auto-mode) is my special friend. With that warning, please feel free to comment on my picture. I am here to learn, meet people, and have a good time. And learn some more. And maybe one day I will know enough to help others.

I wish the background of the shot did not have the distractions, but for me the expression on the boy's face overcomes the rest. Then again, I am a HUGE fan of hugs, especially real, from the heart ones.

happy day,

wren

Scott_Quier · February 20, 2007

Welcome!! I hope you love this place as much as I do.

I agree - the expression on the little boy's face is simply great.

The only distraction I see is that of the face in the upper left corner of the photo. This can easily be cropped out. The cropping will probably improve the composition a touch as well.

urbanaries · February 20, 2007

Hi Wren-

this is an adorable capture. As much as I'm a sucker for tender expressions caught on kid's faces, I have an especially soft spot for little boys!

I thought a crop was in order to cut to the chase...and take care of the distracting background you mentioned.

I also have a tendency to place the most tender/sincere emotional moments in black and white....but that's just me, and i'll certainly take the edit down if you don't want it up. I see you didn't specifically ask for edits, just thought this might illustrate your shots potential.

130104626-L.jpg

schmoo · February 20, 2007

Hi Wren, and welcome! I love your sense of humor and honesty. I can tell that I'll enjoy hearing and seeing more of your posts/work.

I think that's a great photo and the title just makes it even more warm and fuzzy. Urbanaries' crop/conversion is also simple and effective!

saurora · February 20, 2007

Hi Wren and welcome to the forum. Very cute and genuine shot! I really like the cropped version by Lynne, as not only does it remove distractions, the black and white really puts part of the focus on the adult's hand as part of the "group hug". Love it!

Don't be embarrassed to post....we have all been there!

WrenTheBlurry · February 20, 2007

Hey, woot, I got some responses!

Scott, thanks for the welcome, and the suggestion. Happily, thanks to the fantastic work of urbanaries (or do you prefer Lynne?), I did not have to follow it, but instead got to watch it done, and done super well.

Thank you so very much for the sweet crop, and I also really like the b/w version. It does help to further focus on the emotions. Please, may I grab what you did and stick it on my site? I will certainly give you proper 'making this picture uberlicious' credit.

Schmooo, aw shucks, thank you for the nice comments. And anyone that has a forum name that does such fun things to my mouth when said aloud is bound to be a neat person. I will look forward to checking out your work!

Saurora, thank you for commenting! You are she of the lovely dandelion pictures, right? So pleased you poked in here.

happy day,

wren

gpphotos · February 21, 2007

i think my favorite thing about this photo is the kid's face on the far left of the image...it adds something to the whole thing, maybe it adds atmosphere, so you know that the kids arent just hugging because mommy told them to :P

nice snapshot.

i think you'll find that aperture and shutter priority modes are just as easy to use as auto...with aperture mode you'll have a bit more control over the depth of field and focal point of your image.

welcome to dgrin...i remember last june when i opened my smugmug account...i had 8 gigs of photos to upload, lol. the backlog was from feb through june

:jawdrop

urbanaries · February 21, 2007

WrenTheBlurry wrote:

Please, may I grab what you did and stick it on my site? I will certainly give you proper 'making this picture uberlicious' credit.

I'm super glad you like it! And no need to give me credit, what I did isn't anything you can't do yourself, you know, teach a man to fish ...

BW Step #1 : I think my settings were Red: 78, Green:~30, Blue:48, Constant: -10. Make sure you check the Monochrome box, of course.

BW Step #2: David TO's phantastic "pop" tute.

That's it.

HTH
lynne

A meaningful hug

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