First attempt at photography

[myobsession]

I love photography and lately decided to take it more seriously. I watched some you tube videos and taught myself how to do some photo editing. I purchased a Nikon D3000 and have been taking photos on automatic setting. I will be taking a college course on photogrophy starting the end of the month. Any feedback good or bad would be appreciated. I really want to learn more, and hopefully one day become a professional photographer


Nikon D3000
f/5.6
ISO-200
55mm

[lputman]

Welcome to dPS. If you don't mind, please post the EXIF for this photo per the http://digital-photography-school.co...rum-rules.html.

I think you've got a good photo there and could stand just a tad bit of sharpening. I personally am not a fan of selective coloring and you have singled out two different colors. I would say go with the eyes only and not the flower. Keep shooting and posting.

[irishmuth]

some people have some pretty harsh thoughts about selective coloring. personally, i think it works here for her eyes, but i would leave the flower blanck and white

[dblightsey]

I believe rules were meant to be broken. As long as you know the rules, I think you need to know them, then break em with reckless abandon! I really like this photo. Im not big on the flower either but besides that this photo rocks. I really like it.

[myobsession]

Thank you all so much for the feedback! I'm trying to figure out how to sharpen the photo during the editing process. I'm still a little clueless though. However I did take the advice and made the flower black and white. I think it looks much better! I think I was so excited about learning selective coloring that I went a lil crazy with it Also, I'm proud to say that the subject is my 4yr. old lil girl and that's the natural color of her eyes! They are so pretty to me and focusing on them was my main goal with the photo.

[zona5101]

the re-edit is much more appealing

[lonni]

Nice shot. Personally i am not a fan of selective colouring and feel that this type of shot would look just as good in colour a bit of a tweak to the curves to make it pop or a warm deep black and white. I am assuming the BG is a tree trunk, the break in the trunk to the corners of the shot is a little distracting, it draws the eye away from the face.

You could try this shot again with a more contrasty back ground, either darker or lighter as i think it kind of blends in to the hair to mudy the shot. You could play around with light a bit, stronger fo rmore contrast, from one side to make interesting shadows on the face.


Fiddling with these aspects would take this from nice shot to dynamic portrait.

HTH

[SusanH1970]

I definitely prefer the 2nd edit to the first. I'm not a fan at all of selective coloring, but if you like it, then that's what matters! In the first one, my eyes went straight to the flower, but in the second, my eyes go straight to hers. Give it a bit of sharpening and it's pretty much perfect. Your black and white conversion is very nice.

Just a note - try to keep her eyes not so centered, next time around. Take a look at this: http://digital-photography-school.com/rule-of-thirds

For your first attempt, this is really quite good.

I'd LOVE to see a color version if you have it!