8 Days Old!

[taycam]

I am hoping to take my love of photography to the next level in the near future. I would love to specialize in infant portraits, so I've put the word out to all of my friends so they will let me practice with their little ones. This photo is from my very first session (which was a blast!) and I am very pleased with how the pictures came out. I started over from scratch. Is that better? Anything you notice about lighting, composition, skin tone, post production, etc. would be helpful and greatly appreciated. I really want to improve. Thank You.

Camera Model: Canon 50D
f-stop: f/5.6
ISO-100
focal length: 55mm
exposure time: 1/6 sec.
no flash used
shoot through umbrella light and a silver reflector

[Jerry.Hammond]

I notice the focus is soft. Is this intentional? Is that what you're after here?

[taycam]

I did a Gaussian blur to give it a kind of dreamy look and then went back and sharpened some of the facial features. Should it be sharper?

[BigFuzzy]

Yeah, I feel it should be sharper by a lot, at least his/her eyes.

Also, how did you use a "shoot through umbrella" and "no flash used".. did you simply use the umbrella to block the natural light? I say "block" and not "soften" because the larger the light source, the softer the light, so placing a shoot through in-between your light source and subject will only work to reduce the amount of light.. which could explain your 1/6th of a second shutter speed which might also account for the lack of focus?

[sican]

Everything is pretty good except the focus/blur. I think at least the baby's eyes/face should be sharpened a bit (just like the other guys above said).

As for the composition, I feel as if the baby is about to slide to the left; like the photo is tilted a bit. Furthermore, at the end of the photo on the left, the background gets darker a bit (end of the bed probably) which accentuates the effect I feel that the baby is about to fall

I'd prefer it if it was on a flat surface with the background being flat/seamless throughout the entire photo. I'd also try rotating the photo 90degrees clockwise and see if it works better.

Hope I helped a bit!

Regards,
Alex Cican

[tbarabash]

What does original picture look like? With an exposure of 1/6 I'm thinking it may not be the sharpest photo to begin with