# 2 little girls...first paid session!



## JaimeGibb (Aug 6, 2008)

Alright so I shot 2 little girls at the state park last weekend Lexi is 5, Brooke 6 months. Honest feedback please!!!!   Thanks SO much!

All shot with 85mm in aperture priority. PP was only sharpening, lightening the eyes, saturating the colors, curves and some level adjustments...and thats it  

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7.


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## Big Mike (Aug 6, 2008)

Nice work Jamie.

The first two have a green tint to them.

#3 is great, this is my favorite.


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## JaimeGibb (Aug 6, 2008)

hmm a green tint...maybe thats from saturating the greens? I should select the green in the background and then saturate it probably...

Thanks Mike!!


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## tirediron (Aug 6, 2008)

Comments per req:

1, 2. Green caste as noted. In #1, try and avoid cropping limbs that return, that is, her left arm has been cropped above the elbow, but the forearm comes back into the image. In #2, it's her right arm. Also, I try to avoid cropping little bits of things such as the one or two blooms of the boquet.

3. Very good. perhaps just a tuch bright (~ 1/3 stop?) in the skin. Excellent eyes.

4. Not fond of this; good expression and eyes, but the chair-back is very distracting.

5. Nice, but over-exposed in the faces and forearms. I think a big diffuser was needed camera right.

6. Very cute, but the skin tones in the infant seem a little off ('though that may be my crappy monitor at work).

7. Excellent

Just my $00.02 worth - your milage may vary

~John


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## 3of11 (Aug 7, 2008)

#2 saturation is up a bit for my liking.  Cute pictures.


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## Richard (Aug 7, 2008)

I like number 7 the best. Many of the pictures seem a little soft to me.


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## JaimeGibb (Aug 7, 2008)

Thank you so much for all the wonderful feedback!!

I am wondering...these all load as 72ppi in PS. Should I up them to 300 ppi before mailing the CD to the family?


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## kellylindseyphotography (Aug 7, 2008)

My personal opinion is that it loooks like you need more practice before charging for sessions.  Many images are soft, the focus was missed, are underexposed, overexposed etc.  I would give them a CD of all the images at 300ppi and chalk it up to learning experience


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## JaimeGibb (Aug 7, 2008)

Yea well when I say paid, I mean shes a friend and gave me 50 bucks   So technically I was "paid" but am still using it as a learning experience. 

How would I avoid softness and exposure issues?


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## Richard (Aug 7, 2008)

JaimeGibb said:


> Yea well when I say paid, I mean shes a friend and gave me 50 bucks  So technically I was "paid" but am still using it as a learning experience.
> 
> How would I avoid softness and exposure issues?


 
Here are some tips.

1.Make sure you are focusing on the eyes. 

2.Close down your aperture to atleast f/4

3.Make sure that your shutter is high enough to avoid camera shake. ie. with an 85mm lens on a crop sensor it would need to be about 1/125th.

You said you were on ap mode, which is fine but make sure it's giving you a high enough shutter. If you are shooting in a low light area then bump up your ISO so that the computer will give you enough shutter.


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## Richard (Aug 7, 2008)

JaimeGibb said:


> exposure issues?


 
oh as far as exposure. If you are unsure about exposure one of the best things you can do is make sure you are shooting RAW. You should be able to save many images while still holding detail that way. 

Also they may look bright on your screen but if it is not calibrated then you might not be seeing the real exposure.


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## JaimeGibb (Aug 7, 2008)

Got it...as far as shooting RAW, (this just shows my inexperience) when I load them into iPhoto they load fine. But when I bring tem into PS, I cant open them unless I convert them to a TIFF...


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## Richard (Aug 7, 2008)

Well you may need to update your Adobe Camera Raw. But converting it to tiff is fine as long as you make sure that when you convert the file do it with no compression.


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## kellylindseyphotography (Aug 7, 2008)

JaimeGibb said:


> How would I avoid softness and exposure issues?



Practice and experience.  Truly.  My personal opinion is that you should use manual, learn it and love it.  Find out what makes your camera tick and start making the decisions.  You will be happier in the long run.

Softness happens when you have bad exposure, or when you have too wide an aperature, or you miss the focus.  Learn about back button focusing, as well as getting perfect exposure and practice, practice pracitce in all kinds of lighting situation.  Avoid direct harsh sun like the plague.  Avoid dappled sunlight.  Aim for the shade or overcast days to practice on.

FIND the light, and learn how to get it to catch in your subjects eyes.  Watch your histogram when your shooting to be sure of perfect exposure.  If you don't know how to use your histogram, I highly suggest learning about it and what it does.  

Lastly, I suggest www.ilovephotography.com as a resource.  This place is great, but if your focus is children photography, I cannot tell you how much it will benefit your photography.

Good luck, I look forward to seeing you improving!


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## Line of Best Fit (Aug 8, 2008)

Pretty rad stuff! I think I like #7 the best here.


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## NateWagner (Aug 8, 2008)

I hope you don't mind, but, because you said your photos are ok to edit I went ahead and put a few touches on it in lightroom. 






My personal opinion is in line with what the other poster said before that you should just give them the images you took and chalk it up to experience. a good number of the photos posted were rather soft, and the exposure was off. The one I modified was very green among other things.

With some work I think you will definitely get there, just get out there and keep practicing.


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