this is a picture of didi

[chongster]

This is didi, my second son : )

1. in what area is critique to be sought?

composition. and all and any suggestions to take a better picture of didi.

2. what one hopes to achieve with the piece of work?

I am hoping to take a nice bird eyes view of didi sitting in his eating chair and looking up, and using the tiles to create diagonal lines.

3. under what circumstance is the picture taken? (physical conditions/emotions)

indoor, sunlight from window.

4. what the critique seeker personally thinks of the picture

still doesnt look quite right to me, I tried putting him a bit to the left or right to follow the rule of third, but middle seems to look best.

 

[derrickder]

It doesn't look sharp on my iPhone when zoomed in. Perhaps it could be caused by a camera shake. TS, maybe try increasing the shutter speed by raising the ISO or opening the aperture.

I like this photo. But I suggest that only the eyes remain sharp by using a wide aperture and locking focus on the eyes only.

The background could be better. The diagonals are distracting and all over the place.

Cheers!

 

[chongster]

thanks for your comments! yeah, the wife says it is not sharp as well. must go back check, but I was probably shooting at f1.4 wide open.

good thing about a 6 mth old is that you are free to position them, and they dont move that much, so can retake as much as i like : )

 

[wolfton]

Love pictures of kids.

This is my suggestion: give him something to hold in his hand, maybe a biscuit or a small toy. Bring in your wife and ask her to help you make him giggle. He look too serious in this shot

Since the tiles may add to distraction in the picture, you may want to leave it out entirely. Try framing his face and head around the perimeter of the chair and go in close. It's ok to ignore rule of third at times IMO. If you want to keep the rule of third, maybe you can take a plain bed sheet and lay it on the floor and put the chair above it. That will remove the distracting tile lines.

Lastly, I normally won't shoot kids portraits at very large apertures. Certainly not at f1.4. It comes down to personal preference, but from my shooting of my own kids, I normally will set them at smaller apertures. At f1.4, there's a chance of having blurry mouth or nose, because children being children, they can't keep still and their movements can cause the focus plane to shift.

 

[chongster]

Thanks for sharing will certainly try the bed sheet next, wanting to experiment with a minimalist pocoyo look so will try to lose the tiles next for sure.
Also good point about smaller aperture, nothing to bokeh anyway. Thanks

 

[catchlights]

tho has an interesting composition; but

the looking way up make viewers felt that the baby is not in a very comfortable pose, his expression simply say it all.

the focusing is out, only a handful photos can get away with out of focus, but this photo is not.

 

[Shizuma]

congratulations on having children. they are a joy to have.

your son is healthy and his eyes are bright.
don't shoot from overhead. it strains his neck to look up and is uncomfortable for viewer and son too.

 

[zaren]

interesting perspective to shoot from top-down. try to focus more attention on didi's face. try to throw the background even more out of focus, and converting to black and white as the colours are not strong in this image and distracts from the main subject. this will result in a stronger image imho.

 

[chongster]

thanks all for helping to critique this photo. greatly appreciated. Yes, the focussing is off, that's a user problem : )

i do have quite a few shots at face level or below, so trying a different angle this time, didnt realized he would come across looking strained to some; thanks for the insight : p

i do see a lot of kids photo in places like cambodia where the (impoverished) kids are made to look up at the photographer, who's probably dangling some sweets. that's part of the inspiration : )


zaren, thanks for the BW suggestion!