Captain
by timj351

Comment:
Very good capture. I normally look for either eye contact to convey a sense of intimacy to the viewer or a pose/look that demonstrates some emotion with which the viewer can identify. Here you lose a little for me just because you've lost 2 of the more expressive areas of the face: the mouth is shrouded by the beard and the eyes are covered by the darkened glasses. It's a great pose and you exposed it very well. I like the skin tone and even given that it appears to be taken with direct sunlight you managed to keep from having anything really blown out. I could also take the lack of any major expression better if the eyes were simply a little more open so that the viewer could at least perceive the gaze of the subject. All-in-all, I could see anyone choosing to frame this and put it up on the wall or keep it in the album. Good shot and a great example of how to shoot "outside the box" as it just slightly missed on the major areas I look for and yet I scored it well above average.
I do find the horizon at the bottom right corner slightly distracting but rather than cropping the photo closer, I'd suggest just Cloning/Healing Brush it out.

Ok, Who Took My Shoes?
by OneSweetSin

Comment:
Cute shot. Definitely meaningful to anyone that knows the subject and a good capture regardless. While you can't slow kids down for photos (don't I know that) I'll simply point out that the subject's left foot is a little hot and while his right foot seems to have a suggestion of motion because it appears blurry. This is a solid capture and I'm sure any relative would love to have it in an album or stuck to the refrigerator but from a technical standpoint a reflector or a little fill flash would do wonders by just brightening up the shadows on the subject's face. After the fact, though, you can still make some decent changes in Photoshop if you have it by creating a duplicate layer, using the polygon tool (2nd down on the right column) and selecting the darker areas around the eyes and blending down onto the bridge of the nose. Next feather the selection by 5-10 pixels (Select | Feather) and then in the Layers menu create a new Curves Adjustment Layer (its the little circle button at the bottom with a diagonal line through it, when you click it a new menu appears and you select "Curves". Now you can click in either the upper right or lower left corner (based on how your Curves is setup) and then use the arrow keys to move up and down until you actually lighten the shadows to blend them into the subject's brighter cheeks. This won't completely remove the shadows and you don't want to overdo it but I think its a useful tip to know and I think it would help this shot a little.

Eric
by Mousie

Comment:
Good capture. Nice shallow DOF. Even skin tones and direct, intimate contact with the subject. The catchlights in his eyes are fragmented and that's a little distracting but it looks like from the light that it was natural lighting. The light seems just a little flat (which could easily not be the case in the full sized version) so I'd only suggest a little more flash or probably a reflector. I don't know that a gold reflector would work well in this instance since the subject already has strong red tones to his skin but perhaps a white or, believe it or not, a black surface could put some nice, even light back up onto his face from below or from his right side. One tooth has a minor "hot" spot on it that with prolonged perusal can be a distraction but for the contest this is not a nit I'm counting off for and it'd be easily "fixed" before you printed to hang it. Maybe a little less green space at the top if you decide to print it and hang it but otherwise its a great shot. Technically sound and very pleasant to view. 8

Adorable
by Cheerz

Comment:
Perfect title. This little one is adorable. The lighting, however, seems a little flat on the image.

Basic Portrait of a Couple
by JB707

Comment:
The DOF on this seems to be fairly narrow. The male subject's eyes and t-shirt collar seem to be in focus but both the tree bark behind and the female subject's sunglasses seem to be OOF. You got a good set of subjects here with some texture to both of them (he with the facial hair; she with the glasses and hair moving around) but I think a smaller aperture would have helped this composition by widening the DOF. In my experience this is just something that you have to either get right from the first portrait you shoot or you have to take several like this where you want to bop yourself on the forehead when you review the shots and realize that you had the lens wide open until it finally sinks in to check EVERYTHING before taking that shot. Then again, there is another way. You can do what I do and just take hundreds of photos at each photo shoot so that hopefully somewhere in the first hundred or so you'll notice everything from the ISO to the aperture to the crap in the background. :)
I really think you have something here and I think this couple would be well worth shooting again.

The Girl With A Pearl Earring
by sher

Comment:
Perfect use of soft focus on this image. Great lighting, great soft textures.

The Eyes of Blindness
by Everyday Renee

Comment:
Well, this starts off as a good portrait capture but it ends up with a dog in it . . . no serioiusly I hope you read past that after that big blowup that went on before the contest began. The technical problems I see here are that the eyes are so dark we get almost no catchlights in them and there is a distracting object on the right of the photo. Believe it or not both of these things are fixable so that makes them a real pain. If you have PS you can use the Polygon tool to select around one eye and then hold the shift key and select around the other eye. Now on the layers menu you choose the button that looks like a circle with a diagonal line through it and add a Curves layer based on this selection. You can now lighten just the eyes to bring out more definition and show off some of those eyes that will make this a more personal shot to any viewer and not just someone that knows the pretty pooch. Also with the object on photo right, you can simply clone it out and if you notice a gradiation flowing down your image use the Healing Brush rather than the Clone Stamp to gradually remove the offending outline. I do like the overall dreamy quality you got.

Little Princess
by Sonifo

Comment:
Good capture. I know from experience how hard it can be to keep the definition in something like the feathers and still not totally lose the texture in that type of hat. Very good exposure. I'm looking forward to finding out what kind of lighting you used for this shot. I wish it was just a little sharper around the eyes. Perhaps a polygon tool in PS to select only the eyes and apply a selective USM to the eyes to just make them pop so very little more. Good shot.

Solitude
by moodville

Comment:
Damn nice capture. Love the texture of the face and the sharp eyes. The lighting gives this great depth.

Country Boy
by dacrazyrn

Comment:
Totally cute capture. I immediately thought of my daughter and just how amazingly lovely kids are when they are engrossed in learning something or playing with something. It's just so much fun to see them making those connections in their heads. This little guy looks intent on something. Sadly the photo looks a little soft on his face. A gold reflector (or fcb) would have been great on the righthand side of this shot as well to bring a little more light onto his face.