Lots of post processing. I don't know what I was thinking trying to handhold a 0.05 sec exposure. Curves to improve color. Major sharpening to get rid of some blur. Cropped. Applied Neat Image. Hue/Saturation to improve skin tone. Cloning, dodging, burning to reduce motion blur and sharpen the area around the eyes and teeth. Applied Neat Image again to reduce more noise brought out with the color shift. Adjust color again. Saved for web. I wish I knew how to post process better because I don't think I've reached this picture's full potential yet. It's still pretty soft.
This is my niece coming out of the Little Miss Hawaiian Tropic swimsuit contest. Here she's wearing a kimono over her swimsuit. She didn't win anything, but she's always a winner in my heart ;) This was taken at the Marriot hotel lobby hence the interesting background that is the floor. The original exposure was total crap, but I really liked the framing, although I wish I hadn't framed-off the flower on top.
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It is kind of beating a dead horse, and even you admitted it yourself - long handheld exposure was the downfall of this image. Live and learn on that one, we have all been there!
To me the focus seems to be on her lips. Personally i would have aimed for the eye area for this shot - but them its hard to tell where the focus trully was due to the motion blur and camera shake.
That out, lets forget about the handshake issues and discuss the rest of the photo.
The motion blur is very suitable for the subject. She looks young and playful, and swinging her dress around seems like the typical motion of an excited little miss hawaii swimsuit entrant. Normally i am not a fan of photos looking down upon a child, but in this instant with the swooshing skirt, it works well. In fact it would have been nice if the camera was even a bit higher so we could see more of this swooshing and dancing.
Which brings me to orientation - i too find it sad that you missed the top of the flower, but even more so that her skirt swirl was cut off.
Looking at the crop you have provided, i will assume that this was taken in landscape orientation. Portrait would have made for a stronger image, as the flower and the swirling skirt would have both had room to do thier respective thing.
Colours are vibrant, and again compliment the feel the view gets from the model - fun and free. I do have to agree that from where she is standing, the carpet does make the image a little busy. It would have been nice if you had been able to capture her in the center of the circular pattern on the carpet, or else standing fully surrouned by the bluw swiggly carpet. A continuous pattern rather than two conflicting patterns would have mabe the image less confusing will still infusing that complimentary plash of colour.
Post processing. IMHO you have already PP'd this image to death. It is clear to anyone with photo experience that you have sharpen the neatimages back and forth with one countering the other. It has left the textures flat, and made the T area of her face loot kind of plasticy. Unfortunately i don't think this image could have been saved with PP because the blur is so previlent in the static areas of the image (ie carpet) that it continues to remain obvious that there was a focal or camera shake problem from the getgo. There is not much chance of loosing the "softness" withu ending up with hard jagged lines (which is probably why you went back to NI so many times).
Your niece is a beautiful little girl, and doesn't seem to be at all camera shy, i would make the most of that and use her as your little model whenever you can.
If you have any questions of comments, feel free to PM me
Cheers
Elli
The amount of "movement" in the photo makes it feel very unfocused. There is too much "busy" background for my taste; I would have preferred to see a much tighter crop on the lovely child.
I think you may have been going for the mix of stopped action and motion of her dancing. Unfortunately it seems you got mostly motion and an out of focus face. There is a blast of color and it looks like she is having fun and that is conveyed nicely in the image, but I think it would have been better with a little less blur on the face.
Cute girl, nice movement. However, I need some of her in focus. Try a faster shutter speed to capture the eyes in focus while still getting the motion of the dress. 3
Love the model and the pose but just don't think the motion effect was the right thing. As well as adding motion it blurred the face a little too much.
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