Thoughtful Son

[mindforge]

I shot my son today for an hour or so. He was standing in the yard and gave me a little time to bracket some exposure shots on him. My light consisted of fading afternoon light and an SB-600 on camera. Just wanted some critique because I rarely edit for black and white and love my vivid color shots, but this was pretty cool.

[Marko]

I quite like this shot and really dig the moody light and expression.

A couple of points for improvement
- The eyelashes in the light should be sharp and they are not
- I'm not crazy about the crop through the chin and I would have liked to see the roundness of the t-shirt at the neck.
- Not sure all the black space on the right contributes here, I think I'd crop most of it out.
Hope that helps
Marko

[mindforge]

This crop was done in camera, bad shot on my part. Hard to shoot kids though. Only a second or two to shoot any situation then... gone!

Kinda mad at myself for being at f/3.5. I wish I would have went a stop up.

Thanks for the input Marko.

[Marko]

No prob - The key thing is the eye sharpness though.
Normally it's the eye closest to the camera that we want sharp which I think in this case here...but it is the shadowed eye.

Because it is in shadow, it makes the lit eye look soft so that lit eye should have been the main area for sharp focus.
Hope that makes sense.

[Mad Aussie]

Regardless of technical issues discussed already .... I love the lighting and shadow. Looks like you had a reflector low on his right hand side to give the cheek that stroke of light.

As much as I like tight crops and active space I do agree with Marko that the large dark area doesn't contribute. Had the child been looking that way (to his left ... even just a little) I'd have loved it as is! Well ... that eye would need to be sharper.

Still a nice photo though.

[kiley9806]

love the concentration on the little mans face - even without the ever-important eyes. with the furrowed brow & pursed lips, you can still get a feeling out of the shot. love the lighting & shawdows. agree with marko re eyelashes & cropping of chin. great detail & texture of the hair...