Daughter/Lake

[bobbilovesben]

I'm new to photography. My daughter is my subject most of the time. I'm basically just curious to see what kind of feedback I will get from one of my pictures that I take pride in.

I have a Canon EOS Rebel T1i and hope to develop a business in photography eventually.

[sdstone00]

1st of all, good job on not putting her in the center of the frame. When you want background, always try to have your main subject following the Rule-of-Thirds. The branches that are coming down from the top right of the image are distracting. Perhaps raising the camera just a little more may have prevented this. When doing a portrait shot and you have background, try to blur the background by using a smaller depth of field (smaller f-stop). You want the background to compliment the subject, not compete or distract from the subject. The last thing that I believe helps is the fill flash. Try not to use the flash on the camera unless you have to. Something that I was taught prior to purchasing an off camera flash was to use a small piece of either tissue paper or a square of toilet paper (separate double ply). These will both still allow your flash to fill in the shadows, but will not leave the hard shadows of straight on flash. It also helps with red-eye and potential squinting of the eyes. When I first used toilet paper, my subject started laughing and I captured some really great expressions.

[bobbilovesben]

Thank you for your suggestions! :-)

[barry100]

looking at the image i would say you should have put her to the left as she is slightly turned to her left. Also it looks like the photo was taken on a sunny day as she is squinting a bit.

Do i see a little keylight in the eyes? have you used an on camera flash (the popup one)?

Can i ask you what settings you used on the camera? What is the subject of the photo? Is it your daughter or the background? im not sure? If i was you i would have belted down the aperture as low as possible (around f3 or f4) in other word shot wide open or as near to as possible, stood back around 10 feet from your daughter and threw the background our of focus. Remember when shooting portraits to NOT use auto focus point selection and keep the focus on the eyes.

This could be a really good shot if you go back and do it again using what ive said here plus if you use photshop add alittle warmth to the photo (or lightroom just up the temp a little)