My girls...please please critique

[justhe9ofus]

I really want to get better Both were shot in action mode on my Nikon D3100. I think they catch the little personalities but I also think they seem a little soft what do you think.

[monstermum]

I don't know enough to give a proper critique but I can say that I really like the 2nd one the best. I like the innocence it portrays. The first one is a bit blurry around the eyes. Nice capture of the cheeky smile, though.

[wulf]

Just one photo at a time for critique in most of the sections. Since you only had two, I've moved your post across to the comparison section.

On the thumbnails, the photo on the left looks stronger but I reversed my opinion when I looked more closely at both. The daughter on the left seems to have crumbs round her mouth, which is less than flattering. Both suffer a bit from having their faces in shade but with the daughter on the right, at least her eyes are downcast (fitting a slightly darker overall picture) and the background is not too bright in comparison.

Wulf

[justhe9ofus]

Thank you so much. I know my oldest daughter had cake on her face but that's so her. Fun loving (I actually got the picture because she had tooted and was cracking up at herself) and my younger is more serious. Thanks for moving this, sorry, I will make sure I only put one in at a time.

[Eyad]

I'm no pro but I love kids photography as I do it myself as a hobby

As for the first photo:
I agree with the crumbs part, try to mask them out to give cleaner look and crop a bit of the left side of the picture.. I think a bit of contrast will help as I can see it's all flat grey so the B&W color mix should be looked at... LOVE the smile and the backlight

2nd photo:
Too bad it's in the shade, I think it's underexposed a bit so you'll need to brighten it up... I'm a big fan of eyes, they speak a lot so with closed eyes there is not much to say (my theory)

To get better and better with kids photography (as you stated) I advise one thing: Keep shooting those kids

Best of luck.