amanda mumma

thanks everyone. Gosh I haven't been on here for like 10 years! I stumbled across it. A bit of feedback on this image - I was contacted by Getty images to use this image for a baby food company. I licensed it and it was used for 5 years. So goes to show, blurry foreground, white skirting boards and all - an emotive image pays the bills ;)

cute little expression but the bright spot on the cheek is very distracting.

because the flower is tiny, you need to crop in really tight for this one. However, if the child was looking at the camera, the red top against the wall looks good and a looser crop with the child to the left of frame with lots of negative space to the right would be very effective.

really lovely, your bw tones are divine.

 

she's a beautiful girl, the light and the bw tones are really beautiful. I'm wanting to see more negative space in front of her and for it to be cropped tighter behind her. Really really nitpicky here, but losing the white on the inside of her far eye...but that's really picky! Gorgeous image on the whole.

Great image - beautiful light, lovely warmth and movement in her hair and the grass. I too wish you'd placed her more to the left with more negative space in front of her face. Another little thing is the horizon is tilting and intersecting with the top of her head. To avoid this try tilting the top of the camera slightly forward to eliminate the horizon.

 

and its just lovely. Jiri I love the modelling, the hand placement, the catchlights, the bokeh the texture of the tree trunk and the light in her hair. The subtle diagonal in the left third is also good. My only teeny nitpick would be to clone out the stray hair near her mouth.

Well executed.

I'd like to see it with some detail. IMO there is too much face missing (nose, chin) for this to really work. But the image looks like it may be lovely not processed like this.

Also, I'd prefer to see her at the left of screen so she is looking into the negative space rather than having it behind her.

 

yay, some good meaty responses too (love a bit of HHCC).
Firstly - Marc, thanks so much for writing such a detailed response, I agree with alot of what you've said and your bw conversion is really really good. Just FWIW, I had no say in the children's clothes, even the blanket on the beanbag was the mother's. I simply worked with what I had. I do find my Nikons are on the red side - and I think I may have used the cloudy white balance here, I'm almost certain I didn't do a CWB.
I think my 'style' is very natural and quite traditional. I don't set the world on fire with my creativity. I simply do my best to take a good photo which doesn't need much post processing. I originated from film and still like a clean processed digital image in most cases. I work predominantly with young children and hope to capture emotive images which the family will treasure in years to come.
So, with all that said - any HHCC is very welcome, feel free to pick my work apart - I believe it is through constructive criticism that you learn and that is somethng you continue to do every year that passes in the photographic field :-)

I love the freckles - so cute.

Gosh I've been away for a couple of days down the beach (to escape the 112F heat) and come home to all these lovely comments! Thanks so much to you all for your input, I'm truly flattered.
Just thought I'd offer some more info on the pic :-) This is a customer's children and the pic was loosely set up. We put bubs where we wanted and played a 'kissing game' with toddler sister. We got big sis in position by asking her to put her knees down here and kiss baby here on baby's head. It worked as I got about 3 shots at it and this was by far the best. Sorry if it takes some of the magic out of it...big sis loves kissing her little one but it was 'loosely set up' by me by positioning the bean bag baby was on to get the best available light and then gently coaching big sis. As I am a pro I am also fortunate enough to be using pro equip which makes getting noise free, sharp images possible alot easier than using consumer gear. Having said that, I'm a stickler for 'getting it in camera' as I don't like spending much time in post processing. The image SOOC is not much different to this, I've only added a slight curves adjustment and sharpening and a bit of a soft darkening on the edges. Oh, and I have done nothing to the little girls lashes and hair, God gave her those gorgeous assets, I simply captured them :-)

thanks for the CC, in full agreeance. Yes Kim it is the skirting board - I had the baby on a beanbag on the floor. I could have gotten a slightly lower vantage to block it with the beanbag but when you get a toddler cooperate like this you grab iykwim hehehe!Oh, and I'm not fantastic with the clone tool ;-) It will look better in than if I try to clone it out - I wont be able to make it seamless enough.
Thanks for taking the time for the cc, much apreciated.

and what a stunning child too. He's so beautifully perfect.

think I need to load a roll of bw in my old film beast :-)

 

Love this, your fill is beautiful, gorgeous boys (so nice that they gave you such great smiles and eye contact)!

 

Teeny pick, the blown out chair behind grabs my eye.

 

Well done - great job.

thank-you all so much for your kind words and encouragement. It was a very set up shot, and this little poppet was such a co-operative little darling here. I often put a sultana on baby and get them to 'kiss the sultana' to set it up but this one didn't need any encouragment.

your comments are greatly appreciated :-)

thankyou Piet, Al and Eliseo

and just wanted to add that your colour is so natural and soft that I thought it may have been film :-) This is really lovely indeed.

gorgeous girl, nice soft lighting, great skin tones....love it :-)

Such an old fashioned look...very nice.

THis is personal taste only but I'd lower the opacity of the texture somewhat, particularly over her face....but that is only my taste - not a critique per se. Your skin tones are beautiful, eyes a little overprocessed, try pulling back the whites (unless that is the look you are going for).

thanks Gabriel :-) Every once in a while a toddler and newborn will actually come together nicely lol!

I love it when you stop down and get great sunflares like this.

I like the result you got here - my only cc would be to burn a soft vignette to the bottom of the image, it would balance the picture imho.

Exposure Time = 1/400"

F Number = F4

ISO Speed Ratings = 640

Focal Length = 75mm

 

Available window light with my d700

It would have been about 5.30pm ish...about 15 minutes before total nightfall. I shot a series of photos from the onset of twilight right through to full nighttime and this was the best of the lot. There was just enough light left in the sky to retain shadow detail throughout.

thanks Sasha, Andi and BIll. I did know to take the shot soon after twilight and the shots that were taken on 2 mins before and 2 mins later than this weren't half as good. Amazing the difference a few minutes can make huh! Thanks for stopping by :-)