taken in avl light in clients living room.

New to photography, and trying hard. Please critique! :)

Very nice and tender

Now that's one great moment. Great use of the softening.

Lovely composition. Watermarks are very distracting, and lightening her hair would also have helped, I think.

Dave, it's a wonderful image and very personal (I thought it could have been your woman & child), but you need to break yourself from the mindset of "fix it later in photoshop." It looks like you've taken color film and asked it to do a black and white job. Tri-X/HP5 with Acufine (or softer dev. if you choose) exposed and developed properly to print on grade 2 would have made you jump out of your seat and hiding because she would have all of her girlfriends calling you for more jobs! Others will disagree with me, but until you begin to see full shadow detail (in her hair), and full detail in that babies shirt along with the healthy mid-tone that you alrady have, you've sill got a ways to go. If you become serious about B/W photography and not so serious about photoshopography, you would look at this and say to yourself that it needs at least 2/3 stop more exposure and about 15% less developement, maybe more. But you're just starting and this is 100X nicer than my first stuff I thought was hot. Besides, you've got a gift that needs to be taken care of with technical proficiency fed by your enthusiam.

 

Keep it up!

Beautiful picture, Dave. They say there is nothing like a Mother's Love, and this is such a precious moment to have that will last a lifetime, as you captured the essence of the shot so well. I am a beginner, as well, and I wish I were at a point where I could get a shot like this. Thanks for the post.

How cabn we forget Mother's Love - Thanks to remember again