Newbie - Baby Portrait

[chrisc]

New DSLR user here. I'm reading books and forums trying to learn, but it still seems I getter better shots through luck more than anything else.

I thought this one came out pretty good. Some minor edits in photoshop to remove an "eye booger", and I lightened it up very slightly, but other than that this is pretty much how the shot came out.

Rebel XTi, Canon f/1.8 50mm, Natural Sunlight, f/4.5, ISO 800, Shutter 1/30

Does this shot reek newbie? Is it trash? What could I do to improve?

http://cccc.smugmug.com/photos/137688692-L.jpg

Thanks!

Chris

[pemmett]

Does this shot reek newbie? Is it trash? What could I do to improve?


Chris, I think the look on the baby's face is priceless. My only comments would be a closer crop to get rid of some of the background disctractions especially on the left hand side. One for the living room wall for sure :D Cheers.

[sit]

I love the eyelashes. :D

There's something funny to me about the lighting; there's some very even lighting coming from the baby's left that doesn't quite sit right with the highlights from the right. It winds up making the middle of the face the darkest. Maybe someone else can say that better.

[chrisc]

I love the eyelashes. :D

There's something funny to me about the lighting; there's some very even lighting coming from the baby's left that doesn't quite sit right with the highlights from the right. It winds up making the middle of the face the darkest. Maybe someone else can say that better.

Thanks for the comments!

On the left side, at about a 45 degree angle to the baby, is a single window. On the right side wall there are two windows. It was fairly sunny outside, plus there was snow on the ground, so there was a nice amount of "bounce" light coming in. But it was all coming in from the sides and slightly behind the baby.

[Marc Muench]

This is priceless :thumb

But speaking of lighting, yes one of the worst things you can do in portraiture is split the highlights:cry leaving a dark line down the middle of the face. Usually the fill light, in this case the right side of the face should be 1 to 2 stops darker:deal

[Gary Glass]

I'm thinking of changing my handle to "Cropper". I always seem to say "Crop that baby!" In this case I'd crop everything outside the entertainment center. That would get you a more focused shot with less irrelevant and distracting background, get the baby's face more to the right so he's looking through the frame, fairly well disguise the entertainment center, and give the lighter face more "pop" off a darker background (so you might also want to crop out light carpet at the bottom, but you'll lose the kid's chin, so maybe mask and darken it). I might also curve down the highlights just a bit. Finally, to my eyes there's a bit of a color cast, so I'd probably play the curves to get a more pleasing hue.