Cambria

My grandaughter was sitting on my steps with a light coming through

the window. So I grabbed my Canon 40d, 100 mm macro and captured

the moment. I'm just curious if I should have had a reflector or a back

light?

IMO the face light is fine.  A back light would help enhance the photo also the flower in the background, I find distracting.  Otherwise , nice photo.

Thank you Michael,

I hadn't even thought about the flower but you are right.  Thank you very much for the tip.  Glenn

It is my opinion that with kids expression is of paramount importance & you seem to have that aced.  I like the soft but directional lighting and the diagonal placement of her in the frame.  Just for exercise I decided to run this one through photoshop to 'polish' it a bit.  Any changes to your original are very subjective so don't take offence at anything you wouldn't have changed. (like the chocolate chip cookie residue)  :-)  A tighter crop, burning in of the background flower, brightening of the eyes and face and a resizing and sharpening for the web are about all I've done here.  I have grandkids too & sometimes my photos of them sing with no editing but most times I can improve the shot with some photoshop hanky panky.   Best, LM.

Wow Len, seeing just the few changes you made makes that picture sing out!  I HAVE to learn photoshop.  Thank you so much for the awesome insights. 

I love this website because any old hack like me can get some great info from some of the best in the biz.  I'm always in amazement at some of the photos that I see on this site.