Against the Fence

[rachaelade]

larger version: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4002/...4014cfcf_b.jpg

This is my kiddo, and my first post.
I did some cleanup work in Photoshop, but not much... just contrast and a little skin smoothing on some scratches on his face and nose.

The main problem I see is that the right side of the photo is slightly out of focus. Is there a way to remedy this? I also seem to have this problem when taking photos on a tripod. Is there a certain area I should be focusing on? Right now I'm grabbing the nose as it's right in the center of the face.

Camera: Nikon D60
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/5.3
Focal Length: 42 mm
ISO Speed: 200

[irishmuth]

Focus point should always be the eyes - although at F5.3, both the nose and the eyes should be in focus if you focus the nose (and I think there is reasonably good focus on the eyes here). Also, someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but with the subject directly facing you like this, it wouldn't really make sense for just one half of the face to be out of focus since they are both the same distance from the lens. I actually don't see either side of the face being more in focus than the other.

The most distracting thing for me is the inside edge of his lips closest to his teeth - was this edited or was he eating dark-colored hard candy?

[rachaelade]

Irishmuth, thank you for the feedback. Maybe I'm too critical of my work? I do see that the wooden fence on the right side is out of focus, when the left side is sharp and it just bothers me to no end.

As for his mouth, he has some bruising on the inside of his lips due to a direct hit from a basketball, poor kid. I'll try a quick lightening of the liplines and see if that helps.

[cphoniball]

You might want to do some tests on your lens and/or camera if you're consistently having the right side of your photos come out out-of-focus. If your camera was perpendicular to the fence in this picture, the fence on the left should be just as in focus as the fence on the right, and it's clearly not.

Like Irish said, with portraits grab focus on the eyes. This is nice portrait, but the skin looks a little bit too perfect to me, which is either a product of the flat light or your post-processing. Soft light is good, but generally you want a bit of direction to it as well, to give depth to the face. I would have preferred an off-center composition as well, but otherwise good work.

[Benji]

Very flat lit, but I prefer flat lit to raccoon eyes any day! Excellent white balance, focus, and his expression is great, especially for a male!!!

Critique. Had you moved him out from the fence several feet and used a mid-telephoto lens the fence would be fuzzy instead of so sharp. I don't mind reasonably sharp backgrounds, but it adds a degree of boringness to an image, and if the background also happens to be a boring color (gray) and the subject is wearing boring clothing (black and gray are not what I would call colorful) and throw in a dash of boring lighting and finish it all off with a boring flat to the camera pose, guess what you wind up with? A nice snapshot.

Benji

[rachaelade]

Thanks guys... really! I completely see what you mean by flat light. I should have had him further from the fence, and maybe turned to one side a bit to add depth to his face.

I'll try again when we have a nice (not rainy) day out and upload the results.

Thanks again for the critiques! It's hard not to take it personally, but you're all absolutely right, and this is exactly why I wanted someone who didn't have an emotional attachment to the subject to tell me what they thought.

[EOBeav]

Looks to me like that side of the fence is OOF because you have him turned to one side and that's a little further away. It's just the DOF, which is a good thing. If anything, you want your background a little blurrier to create some separation from your subject.

Your boy looks great here. It's toughest to critique your own shots, especially when your kids are in them! That said, I think you could improve this compositionally by moving him to one side or the other. Remember the rule of thirds. Here's my own kiddo from last summer as an example:



Keep up the good work.

[AmberTillman]

I also think the fence could have been blurred. Something about blurring he background that makes photos look more professional. Also, I would have played with angle. Maybe turning his body slightly to the left or right and shooting from the side could have been interesting. Otherwise, very nice color balance and clarity.