Baby portrait, please critique.

[nitrowigie]

Hey guys i am really liking doing portraits lately, so some critique would be awesome!

Panasonic GF1
20mm f1.7 pancake lens
f/4.5
1/125th second
ISO 100.

[graciousness]

What a lovely shot. I wish the photo wasn't so big though, as it's a little hard to see on the screen when it's so huge ;D

In regards to selective colouring, there are some people whose preference lends towards not doing it. Am afraid that includes me. The baby's eyes are so lovely and sharp, I would have just left the photo in colour as I don't feel there's a need to just select his/her eyes for the colour. Some may even find it a bit weird, really, seeing that the eyes are sorta glowing in comparison to the rest that is in B&W.

It would be interesting to see this in colour, if that is possible...

[nitrowigie]

Hey graciousness, Thanks for the c&c. i shot this pic in jpeg, black and white in camera so i cant really change it to colour, but i do have a pic without the blue eyes, so here it is...

[Mark Engelhart]

Did you crop the image any? The reason why I ask is because it is a lovely shot, but it looks a little awkward because it makes you want to tilt your head to look at it. If you have room to do it you could rotate the image about 30 degree clockwise. This would make the image more comfortable to view.

[nitrowigie]

Hey Mark, yeah i did crop it. i should have a bit of room to rotate it a bit, (i see what you mean when you say it's a bit awkward to look at) i kind of had to get right in the baby's face and take the shot cause the lens i've got is only a 20mm prime and i wanted to catch all the detail in the babys face, Thanks for your input.
Noticed you got the d300 as your weapon of choice! how is it?
I am getting one soon coupled with the fantastic 24-70 f2.8 lens...

[commongrackle]

I'm another who finds selective colour is overused. I also find the composition of this shot to be very...unpleasing. The baby's "expression" is not really attractive and as Mark said there is an awkwardness to the shot, sometimes rotating helps, sometimes not.

[Mark Engelhart]

I love my D-300. I do wish it went lower than ISO 200. Very user friendly.