The Children at daughters 2 year old B'day party!

[Jblackjr]

OK, so here is a picture I got of the kids that were at my daughter's birthday party today. I'm sure you can figure out who the birthday girl is, lol. Anyways looking for some feedback on what could have been done to improve upon this picture. The original picture was under exposed and I had to use Camera Raw to brighten things up a bit. I adjusted camera afterwards and got some nice shots but this was the best one I got of the kids smiling and looking somewhat in my direction. So composition, exposure, adjustments, etc, etc...



Nikon D5000
f/7.1
1/125
ISO 200
35mm
No Flash

Also, she didn't want her jacket on and I didn't want to upset her and not be able to get a few good pics, so of course she is the only hard headed child out there without a coat. Oh well, it wasn't too terribly cold, lol.

[Jblackjr]

bump, anyone?

[ShannonSky]

Overall, I would say take a few steps back to get all the kids in the frame and crouch down a bit for a slightly better perspective. It still looks a bit underexposed to me, and the white balance looks a little off. I would go back to ACR and warm the photo up a bit, and brighten it. You might need to fiddle with the blues/reds a little - the girls especially look blue to me. I really like that the birthday girl is in white and centered, it really makes her "pop" to me.

[Jblackjr]

I did the white balance steps finding neutral grey and I displayed it through my calibrated HD tv. I even hit the auto color in Photoshop and it didn't even change. So I really don't know how else to white balance. I can brighten it up and bump exposure up a bit more though and I will repost.

[ShannonSky]

Originally Posted by Jblackjr

I did the white balance steps finding neutral grey and I displayed it through my calibrated HD tv. I even hit the auto color in Photoshop and it didn't even change. So I really don't know how else to white balance. I can brighten it up and bump exposure up a bit more though and I will repost.

Sometimes just with the neutral grey isn't enough and you have to play with the sliders, too. But, I'm not calibrated, either.

[Jblackjr]

[Doug Sundseth]

Exposure and color balance have been covered pretty well, I think, so I'll address composition.

Your biggest problem here is your background. The French doors at the top right of the photograph are busy and contrasty. The result is that they distract from the intended focus of the photo on the birthday girl. Depending on the location, you might have been able to move down the stairs and crop tighter to remove that. If not, I'd recommend finding a better background in some other way.

The subjects look to be pretty far apart for a group photo. If you were to move them closer together, you could tighten up your composition quite a bit and bring attention where you want it.

I'd also consider trying to bring in a little light to provide more shape to the faces of the children. Ideally this should be from off-camera, high left or high right. It needn't be a lot of light, but some directionality would help quite a bit, IMO.

[Jblackjr]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm new to this and I really don't think about all the little things that could be done different. A far as directional light I have nothin to work with and the sun was already behind the house. Only thing I could have done was to use a flash

[amy_bb]

Always love to see pics of your daughter (as mine will be turning 14 on Sunday and refuses to let me shoot her! (although some days I'd like to "shoot" her ).

I'll address your question with a bit of practicallity. There are a bunch of wiggly small kids who have sat together on some steps and they are all looking cute and right at you....quick! go!

The biggest change you could have made on the fly is to get down lower as others have suggested.What I will also sometimes do when I see the background isn't ideal (i.e. too distracting) is to try and have them stay in place and take the photo from the left and then from the right. You also may want to try exposure bracketing (3 or so shots from different exposures---later you can choose which to work w/in Photoshop).
You may have also tried one or two with the flash and one or two without..again, this requires you to act fast!

Overall, it is a very cute shot, the focus is good and the moment was captured nicely.

[Jblackjr]

Thanks Amy. Yea, I do have a lot to learn especially about location so the background doesn't take away from the overall picture but I suppose that will come in time. At least I have a photogenic 2 year old to work with!