My daughter

[jonichilders]

This is one of (very few) attempts at taking staged photographs. I decided I didn't want to purchase photos from the school photographer - who often doesn't do a fantastic job, anyway. Please give me your ideas, thoughts and most importantly, your professional critiques... My biggest question is - would you accept this as a "portrait"? Should I have fixed the minimal strands of hair that hs fallen in her face? Does she look to white, bright or otherwise? Is it too soft? Thanks in advance.



INFO
Camera: Nikon D60
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Flash: Auto, Fired, Return detected

[SandeeWig]

Hi Joni. Beautiful daughter you have there. Though it is a lovely picture, some things that kinda stick out to me are:

• The lighting is a bit too flat. If you are using the pop up flash, I strongly recommend trying to bounce it. I've made a DIY bounce card out of a business card for my popup flash since I don't have an external/speedlight. I love it! This will help create depth, as well as alleviate the pin lights in the center of her pupils.
• The focus is a bit soft. Did you select your focus point and place it over her eye, or allow the camera to focus for you? I ask because the hairs on her arms seem to be sharper than her eyes, which should be the main focal point. Also, increasing the f-stop # will provide more focus depth and help ensure her entire face, at least, is in focus (if that's what you want).
• Her pose is cute, but generally it would be better to have her shoulders angled a bit instead of her facing the camera head on.
• The strands of hair don't bug me so much, but they certainly can be cleaned up in post. I imagine it's natural for a girl her age to have a few strands out of place.

Also, you might want to use a secondary light source to either highlight her hair or aim at the background to create some separation. As it is, her hair starts to blend in with it.

Again, she's a super cutie. I hope this helps for next time.

[mandyatm]

The strands of hair don't bother me at all. The on camera flash seems harsh on her face. It is a cute portrait, but fixing this will make it even better. Also, how far from the background is she? It looks like she could be a little further away from it. She is adorable by the way!

[ttosifa]

I agree with the others about the on-camera flash creating "harsh" lighting. I think, however, that flat lighting actually suits her because of her smooth skin. But the smallness of the flash gives high specularity (direct reflections of the flash off of her skin) as well as hard shadows. It would also help to have hairlights to separate her from the background. But whats-ya-got is whats-ya-got.

One thing that would be fixable with whats-ya-got is the exposure. The picture is probably a stop or more underexposed. If you used auto exposure, I'm not sure why your camera did this to you (I use only manual). You could fix it in post, but the original underexposure didn't adequately capture the detail of her beautiful eyes. That is the most important part of the picture to me. In your original, the eyes are black pools. A quick levels adjustment brought out some of the detail, but I am sure there would be much more in a correctly exposed photo.