Well I was trying to get a shot for the Selective Desaturation Challenge, but due to my children being sick last week and it raining all weekend, it didn't happen. So I figured I'd throw one in the side challenge here. This is a more candid shot of my daughter, with her fantastic blue eyes. I was hoping to get a nice outside shot at the beach for the Desat. challenge since I don't have any lighting equipment for inside shots.
Portrait comments would be greatly appreciated since I know very little about them. Especially subject placement, lighting, cropping, etc..
I agree with the comments, the relatively harsh lighting from the on-camera flash tends to cause the deep shadows under her chin which are not too flattering, perhaps a diffusion dome, or something similar would have helped. ALso, I don't really care for the blue colorization, but that's just personal preference.
OK first things first, I like this as an image...a lot
Now being uber critical (as per your request) a few things to consider
1. the background on the upper right is a little bit distracting. In my limited experience portraits work best where either the subject is interact with the background, or where the back ground is either sharp enough to add something to the image or bokeh enough not to provide any clues as to what it is
2. With this kind of shot you can play around with the contrast quite a bit to make it pop, there are not many whites or blacks in this shot which means that contrast becomes more important
3. Because this is quite a light image in terms on tones a black border may have helped it stand out more
As I said at the start this is being very critical and please dont think that this is anything than a lovely image of your daughter
i sort'v agree with sandy about the composition .. but i feel that the eye's are a little bit to contrasty re colour with the rest of the image .. if i'd wanted the eyes selectively saturated i think i'd'v just made more a suggestion of blue rather than the way it is now ..
i love her expression, and the quirkyness .. she looks adorable .. love those freckles .. i'm thinking that a bit more light/contrast in your shot could work .. i'm also thinking that her hair is getting lost in the background .. it does make her face stand out more tho, so i'm not sure about that ... but i'm not the worlds best photographer and anything i say is just my opinion .. and other ppl might totally love this shot exactly the way it is ..
anywhere other than dpc and ppl would be going omg omg this is excellent!! .. i reckon this'd look great in a frame or on the wall .. it is a lovely portrait .. :)
She is ADORABLE!!! You wouldn't know you know nothing about portraits :) It looks great.
As far as composition -- I don't know if it's must me -- or something that's official, but it seems that they eye finds it more pleasing for the subject to be looking towards the negative space rather than away from it, so if this were my portrait, I think I would crop it so that there was less negative space on the right, but more on the left. But if you don't have any more on the left, I think it would still be okay to crop it on the right and just have more of a fill-the-frame portrait.
Course, that just may be my personal tastes and not worth a hill of beans either :)
The composition looks good. You have nice DOF which makes your daughter stand out more. Great job on the desat. I haven't tried that yet. Will be real hard to do it on my kids because they have really brown eyes. As for lighting, I would try near a window to get some filtered ambient light. That might help show off her beautiful face to make it pop more and add some highlights. Just a suggestion, because I too don't have any special lighting.
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