To Blurr or not to Blurr

[ShannonK]

I took photo's of my best friends kids over the weekend. I would have been happy with this picture if the kids wouldn't have been blurry. My friend really likes this photo even if they are blurry. What do ya'll think?



Exposure 1/2500 sec
Aperture f/1.8
Focal Length 50 mm
ISO Speed 200
Creator Tool Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.3


There are more photo's of them on my flickr if you would like to check them out.
Flickr: doolmom's Photostream

[zenandzen]

I messed around a little bit with the image I downloaded from flickr and when I used unsharp mask, set to a radius of 4, - I did it two separate times, and it has improved the girl's blurry face but not the boy so much.
It does render a little bit of a canvas/painterly look - might be worth a try with some filters.

A nice moment captured - both kids have an ideal look on their faces.

[greenroomsessions]

I think this is a nice shot if the kids where in focus.

[MrJones]

USUALLY you want your photos in focus.
but I think it actually works here, the blur adds a certain charm to the photo giving it a fairytale kind of look together with the colors processing you've done - I think it's a very interesting photo.

[scootermcq]

Personally it does not work for me, but obviously that is subjective. Your camera autofoucs has selected the flowers infront of the kids, causing them to be out of focus. For portraits, I would set the camera to a single point autofocus and select the focus point yourself. The cameras are smart, but sometimes they goof and ruin what would otherwise have been a beautiful image.

[sk66]

It doesn't work as a "portrait" but it does have potential as an "emotional" image.
For that you need to focus on the "feeling" and to me it would be one of "attachment/love" for the parents, and between the kids....it's also a feeling of "purity/sweetness"..

Here I added some additional blur and slight vignette, desaturated a bit and adjusted exposure...going for that "dreamy romantic" idea...Not sure I pulled it off particularly well but yo get the idea...

[Murtasma]

I won't go into a full blown critique but I really like the image. Usually having the face in focus is critical to a good portrait but I think here it really works since the focus well onto the flowers which both children were looking at. I think it's a pretty emotional image and I like the post processing that was done your image as well as sk66 rendition. think going with a dreamy feeling really suits this image well.

In all actuality if the kids were in focus I don't know if I would like the image as much. It would still be a good image but then I think due to the all the flowers surrounding them things might get kind of distracting. It's hard to tell with out one properly focused but I'd be happy with this mistake.

[ShannonK]

Thank ya'll for your input. I think it help that the kids weren't looking at the camera. If they would have been then this would have been all wrong I guess. Dreamy is a good work to discribe it. Thanks again!!

[fugo]

I like it - sometimes mistakes or accidents make for nice photos.

Its soft - comfy on the eyes. Probably wouldn't have worked if they had been looking into the lens but the composition and poses lend well to soft focus