Singin'!

As Gordon said, I think the amount of crop is what created your biggest challenge. That is a very serious crop, at any ISO and under any conditions.

 

Now let's talk. There's Grandpa and there's photographer. Grandpa, naturally, has to come first. OK. You've done what you can as Grandpa. Now go back and look at this with a fresh pair of eyes. Or at least, set it aside and come back to it at a later date.

 

This photo, as is (or with just a slight bit of cropping), is about content. True, you may never get the technical sparkle you might like out of this. But allow the content to guide how you approach this. You don't have to, by any means, but keep in mind that you can often get a better finished product with black and white when you start off with a technical challenge like this.

 

David, you have an absolute winner here. Any one of us should be thrilled to catch a moment such as this. Those faces, all caught in the act. Expressive, wonderful!

 

Don't allow all those eyes and gestures to be lost. Perhaps the 4 kids all the way on the right (4 almost in a veretical line, with the microphone) could be cropped out and then you have yourself a magical photo. There will be no mistake that your granddaughter is singing. Depending on how you want to treat this photo, you could make her the star or make this more a group portrait. From the kid in the Santa hat, distracted but present and with eyes bulging with enthusiasm, to the girl bringing her finger so gently up to her cheek, to the blurry girl's energy at the bottom, to your granddaughter's wonderful look of devotion (context guides the expression here, the story can now be told). Even the composition will be great, with many diagonal lines reflecting the movement of the music and the hand gestures punctuating the story taking place.

 

David, we can get hung up thinking portraits have to be closeups. Naturally, many are and that makes sense. But some of the best tell a story with surroundings and with others, even others we don't know but can universalize. I have a very special photo of my mom. A class picture taken in the schoolroom itself with all the kids just sitting at their desks, those oldstyle one-piece desk/chair thingies. The age, the era, the furniture, the dress, the innocent smiles, Childhood (with a capital "C") make it a very special photo for me. Now, that one is special, but it is only a class picture. What you have here is much, much more.

 

We've talked about "documenting." This can be a wonderful portrait of your granddaughter with other singers and it can also be a truly heartfelt and moving documentary-type photo. It runs the gamut from snapshot to fine art. (Snapshot, used this way, is a supreme compliment!) This one just grabs you and doesn't let go.

 

--Fred

I'm learning! This photo post and analysis is GOLD!

Thanks for uploading the original. IT IS a huge crop. as a lot of interpretations were already made, I will add only my one line. I think it is well executed as a grandfather, and also a photographer ,that tried and have a nice outcome from a very challenging situation. As we say in Hebrew: "kol hakavod".....( if you are not familiar with it, let me know ;-))

I do know kol hakavod, and thank you! Warm regards, David

Man! You really got down inside this picture! I understand exactly what you've pointed out, and I'm amazed by a whole layer of the original that I essentially ignored as I tried for the more traditional, head-shot portrait. I'm going to go back now and work with the original, keeping in mind (probably referring to from time to time) your observations and reactions. I'd only thought of the others' expressions, and the importance of the context in passing, and that's doing the g-father thing... heck, we all (family) know the context, so, why don't you?! :-D

 

You didn't explicitly say, but I'm assuming you're not really concerned with the lack of focal clarity. I'd be interested to know how you might approach post processing this, beyond the cropping you suggested. I'll work with it... b/w might be very interesting.

 

Thanks for the great perspective, so much time and energy, and being so encouraging. Warm regards, David.

Sent you an email.

David, I'm really pushed for time and getting nowhere with my PhD revisions (that should have been all done and dusted 2 days ago!) - so this is a quicky. I'm sharing thoughts of several people who have posted here. I'm not overly keen on lots of post production that turns an image from a photograph to a drawing....BUT I think you have done good considering the smal size of the crop you started with. The subject is clearly a child singing - although I see the child beginning to appear like something made from modeling clay. I don't know why - that's just how it hits me. And I first viewed this picture when you first put it up and I had the same thoughts then!

 

I think that posting up the original has helped as it showed what you had to start with. But I also agree with Fred that perhaps you could get something else as well by using a slightly wider crop. This is only my thoughts - but a slightly wider crop will locate the child and tell more about what is going on. And when I was fiddling around looking at various crop options, it seemed possible to place the child in a strong position in the frame, so it's still obvious who the subject is, and I noticed that the amount of blur that was on the other children was greater - which really accentuates who the subject of the photo is. Here's what I ended up with - see below.....

food for thought (maybe....)

I'm really flattered you took so much time, when you have so little to spare, to not only give me what seem anything but hurried comments, *and* to spend time working on the shot! I like the crop and it definitely identifies the scene much better. It hadn't occurred to me, but the original does, indeed, remind one of modeling clay! I'll have to tell Emily she's become a clay-mation figure! I'm just not happy with the poor focus and resolution of the original, but we all know some shots just don't cut the mustard no matter how hard we've tried to get them. Again, I very much appreciate your careful observations, hurried or not! Best regards, David.

David, hope she doesn't get offended. I think it was the ear that did it first - can imagine making that out of a bit of clay wrapped around the thumb! Funny thing is, I've been watching my kids this evening playing with plasticine.

 

You know, I don't really think that the blur from motion and slightly squiffy focus and the noise really hurts the original image that much. I see it as making the image much more dynamic, and what comes across is the feeling of being there in the semi-darkness listening to the kids singing. If the image was crystal sharp, perfectly frozen in perfect focus, then looking at the detail in the image would likely detract from just feeling the image. I'm not sure if I've explained what I mean very well - bit tired you see, and I'm just off to the boudoir in a mo.

There you go, giving me a whole new way look at and think about this pic. Thank you! Hope you've slept well by the time you read this.