wanna be photographer

[trishthedish]

took this shot of my best friends little girl cut her head off lol!

[MrJones]

please post the EXIF data so we can help you better.
other than that, I don't mind the chopping of her head as much as I mind the focus issue you've got here.

[graciousness]

By the way, Trish, you've got a camera, you shoot, so in those moments when you click those buttons, think, learn, shoot, you are a photographer. There's no such thing as wanting to be something when you're already doing it

Yes, exif data would tremendously help here with critiquing your work. Also, embedding this by way of online links (such as flickr, etc) would be better so that the photo is visible with the post and helps people analyse the image better.

I've just noticed recently that when I'd been using my prime/macro lens shooting my little toddler in landscape orientation, I've been chopping her head, too with close ups. Whilst it's not really such a big deal, I think it's just better practice to take it in portrait orientation mode, esp if you are not really incorporating the scene or background behind her. Center shots are ok, but you'll find that it's more dynamic (in most cases with portrait) to shoot off centre (an example is the use of the rules of thirds). But I do understand that with candid shots, esp with children, you take what you can get in that tiny moment when you don't really have much time to compose but only to shoot. BUT with practice of better composition, it gets natural to shoot off centre in time.

What lens did you use, by the way, and what type of camera?

Anyhoo, you do have focus issue on this shot. With portrait or with close up shots of people, the most important thing is to have the sharp focus on the eyes. If you manage to do that, then everything else is forgivable if they're not in focus.

I don't know how much you've fiddled with the post processing on this, but see if you can sharpen it a bit. If not, then I do think it's a lost shot, really. Also, the B&W conversion is a bit gray - you may want to add more contrast to it.

Cheers and don't forget - you ARE what you do.

Grace -