Creampuffs

[Strathias]

This is my first portrait post, and my first critique post with my new camera, and my first DSLR. I took this at the Wisconsin State Fair, while my son was eating a creampuff. I'm looking for overall critique on the image, including positioning of the sun in relation to the subject, composition, exposure, as well as post process. I'm very new to both photography and PP, so any critique/tips are welcome and appreciated.

Post processing was minimal - I changed the white balance to the "Daylight" preset, upped the contrast a little, slightly modified the tone curve to make the colors "pop" a bit more, used the Lightroom lens correction, and added a very slight vignette.

Edit: EXIF Info:

Camera Canon EOS REBEL T3i
Exposure 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 55 mm
ISO Speed 160
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire

[Strathias]

Bump for the weekday crowd!

[Rentham]

I like the image and the moment. It may have been beneficial to include the creampuff in the frame to give the image context. That's about as delicately as I can put it.

[BigFuzzy]

First off, welcome to the Critique forum and DPS and photography in general. Glad you have the balls to post as we're not always nice here. But I'd say even when we're not nice we're tying to be helpful...

...which leads me to my comments.

In the end, it's a nice capture of a candid moment that means something to you becuase you know the context. As Rentham hinted, we don't the context so all we're left with is a snapshot of a kid with some cream around his mouth so we lose a lot of the meaning resulting in this essentially being a snapshot and not much more.

I say this also because of composition. This is a dead-center composition and has a ton of distracting elements in the image. For example the two other people in the frame (to me) detract not add to the image. Plus always think of the background. The area behind his head has a very stark change between dark and light which is always distracting.

Always focus in on the thing that drew your attention.. in this case the boys face. You don't care about the womans torso/arm or the other kid do you? So why have them in the shot? Get in there and focus on that which is interesting and cut out the rest.

Also, even with 1/100th of a second there is movement blur in the kids mouth which is one of the areas of interest.. to me a no-no.

As I said, in the end it's a pefectly find "for the record family snap shot" which means more to you than it will ever mean to us. This, in the end, hurts it's "photographic" qualities even though it's a perfectly fine snap shot. Does that make sense?

PS you didn't position the sun in terms of the subject, you positioned the subject in relation to the sun.. unless you have amazing powers!

Keep posting!

[Strathias]

Thank you both of you for your feedback! I'm still very new at photography beyond taking snapshots, so I am definitely looking for critique. I have a pretty thick skin, I can take "not nice".

Composition is one of the areas I'm trying to focus on right now, so I appreciate the feedback, especially on removing the parts I don't want to focus on, and the distraction coming from the light/dark contrast behind his head. I didn't see that before you mentioned it, but I can now. That constrast does stick out quite a bit.

Thank you again!

John

[BigFuzzy]

Thanks for taking it as it was intended.. as constructive to help you see and improve (at least in the ways I see it), but do remember, nothing we say is law, but something to ingest and put together with everything else and see what you come up with.. in the end, your vision/taste is what you want to achieve, not mine or anyone else's