Child Shots: Need Suggestions!

Mayndi · February 26, 2005

i have some more pictures i'd like to post of the little girl i babysit for! i would love some comments as to what i could do different, what i could do better, etc, because all of the pictures i post, are all my firsts.

i shot these with a Sony Cybershot 4.1 (not the best camera, but it's getting me by) and yes the time stamps are on the pictures beyond my control. the little girls mom requested them to be on there so she'd know the date. i protested, but she just would not oblige. aye yi yi! again, if i stink, please tell me, if there's something i could do better, again please tell me. i know a few of these pictures have obvious flaws, but i would love to hear from you! thanks so much guys!

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Obvious Flaws: Grainy Picture

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Obvious Flaws: Child looks tilted

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Obvious Flaws: (Mentioned via comment) Uneven shoulders

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Maybe this ones too sharp? Not sure.

Again thanks so much for the help too! Photographing is really new to me, so I'd take any help I could get.

:lust Mayndi

Steve Cavigliano · February 26, 2005

Mayndi,

First off, no you don't stink

Even if you did, you'd still be welcome

That you've posted some shots for criticism and stated your desire to improve , says a lot about you

Please keep in mind that I am not a good "people shooter". Having said that, I think most of the issues with your pics is lighting. Some of the shots would be very nice, except one side of the face is bright (sometimes overly bright) and the other is shadowed. This works well sometimes, but IMO, shouldn't be done all that often.

1st shot. Yep, a little grainy and probably could benefit from tighter cropping. Her right eye is shadowed, giving her eyes an unbalanced appearance.

2nd shot. Better. The crop is nice and so is the color. But, it's a little over exposed (her cheek and the flower). Her eyes, however, look much nicer in this shot

The shadow isn't even too bad.

3rd shot. My favorite of the bunch. Nice exposure, nice composition, it's pretty sharp and you captured a precious pose

It looks really nice in B&W too

Her right eye is still a bit shadowed, but looks balanced with the left eye. This is a very nice shot, IMHO

4th shot. A touch over exposed and yes it's a bit soft (it looks like she moved a little). I like the pose (not as much as shot #3's pose though).

Even though you write that you know very little about photography, these are not bad at all. Plus, they aren't exactly snapshots. It looks like you put some prior thought and planning into them. Which is always an excellent idea. Even more so, when done by someone who is just starting out

Anyhow Mayndi, other more knowledgeable "people shooters" will probably chime in with much better critiques. But I wanted to welcome you to Dgrin and I think it will be the right place for you to get input on improving your skills/shots. We don't care what camera you use as long as you are as passionate, as we are, about shooting better tomorrow than you did today

Looks like you'll fit right in :-)

Thanks for sharing,
Steve

Mayndi · February 26, 2005

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

1st shot. Yep, a little grainy and probably could benefit from tighter cropping. Her right eye is shadowed, giving her eyes an unbalanced appearance.

2nd shot. Better. The crop is nice and so is the color. But, it's a little over exposed (her cheek and the flower). Her eyes, however, look much nicer in this shot The shadow isn't even too bad.

3rd shot. My favorite of the bunch. Nice exposure, nice composition, it's pretty sharp and you captured a precious pose It looks really nice in B&W too Her right eye is still a bit shadowed, but looks balanced with the left eye. This is a very nice shot, IMHO

4th shot. A touch over exposed and yes it's a bit soft (it looks like she moved a little). I like the pose (not as much as shot #3's pose though).

thank you so much for your advice and input! she's such a great little girl to take photos of because she'll just ham it up as much as possible, but after awhile and many many poses, she starts to get annoyed and won't do aynthing

. next time i ask her to take pictures, i'll definately work on the advice you've given me. thanks so much steve!

thegreenegg · February 26, 2005

I really like your pictures. I'm a newbee myself but I like shots of people.
To the pictures I like the emotion and expression of the 4th one the best but it's seems out of focus to me like you either were to close or zooming in and didn't let the camera focus which is hard to do when capturing such a nice moment.
I agree with previous comments made that you seem to have taken time to set up the shot but I think you should try being even more creative.
Maybe you could move the little girl or the light around so that you can experiment with different angles/shadows of light...that's the first thing I did anyway when I got my pretty low budget camera compared to many of the cameras I see other people using on this site (a hp photosmart 935- 5.3 MP).
I really like the picture in color and while black and white adds character I think you should take a few more shots in color to try to highlight the beautiful color of the girl's eyes.
I like it. Can't wait to see you do some more!
SMILE!

USAIR · February 26, 2005

Mayndi
I agree wityh Steve you don't stink
In fact you seem to have a good eye for a "beginner"
Anyway good stuff

Keep shooting

Thanks
Fred

Khaos · February 26, 2005

You do well in composing the shot. Without that, it doesn't matter how much you learn about DOF, shutter speed, and what not.

As you learn, your shots will be very impressive. I look forward to seeing them.

ridetwistyroads · February 27, 2005

Agree with the group, great eye. The rest comes easy from there, no worries, just keep shooting! You'll learn about the tech stuff very naturally as time goes by. Just keep being creative.

But could you ditch the date stamp? :cry P P Pretty please?

REECEPHOTO · February 27, 2005

Mayndi a couple of things:
1 lose the time,date stamp as soon as you can. Just write it on the back of the prints if your printing them. If not try and do it in photoshop (YOU) can make it look a lot better.
2 you have a digi camera, shoot shoot and shoot some more most of photography comes with experance.
3 your allready on dgrin/smugmug so look at others photos and pick the ones you like and try to duplacate them for pratice.
4 With a little bit of pratice you'll be suprised at how much you'll improve.

Have fun and shoot your butt off.

Child Shots: Need Suggestions!

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