Maternity Shot

[Kelly24]

Friends asked me to take some pictures of them this past weekend. This picture was their favourite and my favourite too. Still, I'm not entirely sure it's as great as they thought it was. I have done a bit of post processing - mostly just work on the colour levels. I'm looking for general criticism but in particular I'm curious if the cropping of the picture is appealing (too centered?) If their body positioning is peculiar - they wanted some less traditional type posing and this was a pose I suggested but now I'm wondering if I put them too far apart - and if the focus seems a bit soft in their faces.

Thank you in advance for your thoughts and advice!


IMG_1410 (640x512) by Kelly K24, on Flickr

Canon Digital Rebel
F.5
Exposure 1/400 sec
ISO speed - 200
Focal length - 39mm

[kelleyrie]

I like the idea, I do wish that he was looking at her a bit more. I think though that the skin tone is what bothers me, it seems too dark and red.

[Kelly24]

Thanks kelleyrie - her skin especially right? She's more tanned than he is and I thought her skin tone in particular was weird. I think I need to learn more about post processing and fix that.

I wish he had been looking at her as well but funny enough - him not looking at her was one of the things they liked the most about the picture. I guess if they're happy...

[kelleyrie]

hey if they like it, no worries. Yeah I am awful at skintones in pp so I can't help there

[BigFuzzy]

Great idea. Great spotting that really cool wall, reminds me of my great find.

I don't mind the space between them at all. Though if I had to do (or at least try) something different. I'd have her closer to him but leave lots of negative space to the right so there's space in the direction she's facing.

The image looks really soft to me. Shutter speed was fast enough to have allowed for a sharp image, so I'm not sure what happened.

Also, the image looks really underexposed which gives it all a bit of dull look which could be easily fixed.
All of this is assuming the pc I'm on has a decent monitor, and I think it does.
Try boosting the exposure up a bit, i think you'll like it more, it'll pop a bit more.

In the end, great idea and well spotted, but for me (I'm very picky) the softness of the image really hurts it. Make sure you nail that focus
Keep posting!

[zona5101]

weird. the image embedded looks sharp...but when I look at the Flickr version is isn't. neither are some of the others out there.
If they like it then awesome. I would want them more together in the frame.

[Kelly24]

Al - the best part is there were about 5 different coloured walls all in the same spot. I didn't post any of the other ones but I have pictures of them in front of a purple wall, a blue wall, a green wall, a dark yellow and a burgundy. It was very, very cool. We were just wandering downtown looking for some brick walls to shoot in front of and stumbled upon the coloured walls. It was very, very cool.

I thought it was really soft in the focus as well, which kind of surprised me because I didn't remember it being like that when I was looking at the picture before I uploaded it to Flickr. Once I read Bruce's comment I went back and looked at my original picture compared to the uploaded Flickr picture and it is much sharper in the original picture. Odd.

Anyway, it's still good advice - I tend to have issues with getting a nice sharp image and need all the practice I can get!

Thanks again everyone for your comments and advice; it is much appreciated!

[3bayjunkie]

I love the backdrop. I would have over-exposed it by one stop. But that can be simulated in photoshop.