Jump on the Wagon!

[Journeywithin11]

Hi! I'm new to the forum and looking forward to receiving advice and reviews on my work. Photography has been my hobby for 10+ years. I am now at a point where I'd like to take my work a little more seriously (ie. I've done a few friends weddings and extended family portraits). Well, I'm just going to jump right in with this recent picture of my son....

[Sandie]

Nice natural expression. It put a smile on my face and he is a cutie. When I look at it with a critical eye, these are the things that bother me: the hair on the right side needs to go, either crop or clone it out, the yellow wheel and the yellow bars at the top need to be cropped out. I like the diagonal his body makes as it intersects with the straight red bars. The red 'triangle' in the back leads the eye right back tot he eyes which is a good thing. I like the shot a lot.

[tomw]

I totally agree with Sandie. A close crop (closer than Sandie says) will be very flattering to your son's eyes. Keep a 7x5 ratio and crop from just above the boy's head ( a few inches above) over to the hair on the side of the photo. A closer crop in a great photo like this will make it look amazing.

[aakash_vakil]

Its a very nice and cute portrait. He is a natural :-)
In addition to above posts, that white patch just top left of him is distracting - see if you can dull it a bit.

@tomw, I like the tag line in your post.....
"You know you are a photography nerd when you spell "Stop" with an "F" "