My first studio style shoot(looking for feedback)

First of all, Welcome to Dgrin, Melissa.

Now for your photo. I think it could use a tad more DOF, as it appears that the hair and below the baby's face os OOF. It appears that there are flowers below her face, but they are blurred and washed out. Also, it appears that parts of the face are a bit hot, and the baby's right cheek is blending in with the blanket or whatever she is laying on. Maybe just dial back the brightness a bit and that would be solved. Otherwise, nice photo for your first post.

GaryB

It's a very pretty picture; you have captured the baby's eyes beautifully. But (there's always a but isn't there)...the processing is over-stylized for my taste. By blurring out and fading everything but the eyes and lips, it makes it feel like there's a floating head. A great baby picture can stand up on its own by just showing the baby and not going crazy with post-production, in my opinion.

Light is pretty harsh. Processing is just kind of ridiculous and doesn't flatter the baby, and the DOF, whether real or fake, gives a very "disembodied head" look.

Also, the watermark is pretty overwhelming. I'd lose that, and replace it with something a little more conservative/professional.

Aperture??? f/1.4, f/1.8?

I am sorry but I have to agree with Quincy on every point. It is way over exposed to the point where you are blowing highlights. Also the lighting is very flat. By looking at the location of the catch lights in the baby's eyes it looks like you shot this straight on. Try and move the light to camera left in this case to get some sort of light fall across the baby's face. What sort of light source were you using? Any type of modifier? As for the post work I am not a fan of the white vingette.

I would also like to add something about your watermark/logo. I like your idea of the logo, but I think you should swap your name and photography in terms of size. I understand you are trying to sell photography, but its so big your name gets lost in the shuffle.

This falls into one of those catagories of "what were you trying to do?!" If you met your goal is all that matters. Everyone else will run the gamuet of criticisms.

Originally Posted by Hackbone This falls into one of those catagories of "what were you trying to do?!" If you met your goal is all that matters. Everyone else will run the gamuet of criticisms.

I think this falls into another quite different category, but for the sake of peace and quiet I'll hold my tongue.

Melissa welcome to Digrin
I tend to agree with Charles in that "we" all have our ideas and opinions of what "art" is let alone "good" portraiture.
I will say though that as cute as the baby is, this does not appeal to me in that all I can really see are two eyes and brows, a mouth and a little nose while everything else is washed out in a blast of light. In a whole other context this might work better as I've seen such portraits that had a bit of appeal.
Getting back to what Charles said and expanding on that a bit, does your client like it?
If so, then you've accomplished an important part of being people photographer.

way to go people... i hope this is not her first and ONLY post

Way to go people? If someone post something on here I dont like I bite my tongue. If they ask for advice or ways to improve I will tell them what I do and dont like about them. I will say though that I have slowly stopped posting stuff on here because sometimes I feel like if a certain person posts something on here that is not good at all they get praised, yet someone new gets blasted. This lady asked for feedback, got it, and never responded again. I would say every post on here is honest. Some people can handle feedback like this and some cant. I have been on both sides of the comment spectrum from being torn apart to receiving good comments.

Originally Posted by Dooginfif20 Way to go people? If someone post something on here I dont like I bite my tongue. If they ask for advice or ways to improve I will tell them what I do and dont like about them. I will say though that I have slowly stopped posting stuff on here because sometimes I feel like if a certain person posts something on here that is not good at all they get praised, yet someone new gets blasted. This lady asked for feedback, got it, and never responded again. I would say every post on here is honest. Some people can handle feedback like this and some cant. I have been on both sides of the comment spectrum from being torn apart to receiving good comments.

And if I was charging people a good amount of money for my work, I would want to improve it in every way possible. I wouldn't want someone to look at the photographs I made right next to the photographs of another photographer, made for a lower or equal price, and think that they were not nearly as good.

Nice shot?