I had taken hundreds of pictures of everyone I know. Needless to say, I was still shooting long after they were tired of it. I was lucky to at least get a glance my way when I caught this one.
I have cropped to remove surrounding distractions and resized according to rules.
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Hi Cindy & greetings from the Critique Club.
I'm not going to just repeat the things the other commentors said (below). It's all good advice, and they all recognised that the potential of this image was not fully realised due to a few aspects of technique. Perhaps the most constructive and immediately practical advice overall came from emorgan49. She knows what she's talking about, so if any of her advice was unclear to you, don't hesitate to send her a PM.
Now, as I have nothing new to offer you on this image, I looked instead at all the other photos in your portfolio. You have a nice eye for recognising the beauty of your spectacular surroundings in Arizona (and a bit of Mexico). It is especially good to see that you are trying a range of subjects and styles. Keep doing that ... it's really the best way to learn. By the way; many of your titles are very clever ... they indicate that you have a finely-developed understanding of what you're seeing in your subjects and what it might mean. And that's important ... having vision is at least as important as having great technique, and it's certainly harder to come by! You can have both.
Final advice: Much of your work (including this portrait) could have been strengthened by some simple post-processing techniques. Even very simple processing software such as probably came with your camera can do a lot. There's a forum thread just started up on basic post-processing, mentored by Bear_Music. It would be a good place to learn about things like tonal levels, contrast adjustment, sharpening, colour adjustment, etc. Best wishes,
Paul Martin
I know you brought this in and cropped it closer?
You have such a great looking kid, with those freckles and those great eyes.
did you use flash? I am not trying to be harsh, but I think with a little work you could really have something great.
oops - someone is going to call this a snapshot if they havent already. A great model in a thoughtful pose doesnt make a great photo. At issue here is 1. focus, nothing is in sharp focus 2. flash - on camera flash almost always gives and unpleasant effect, here the catch light in her eyes and the highlights on her face, try the same pose next to an open window with just the natural light. 3. white balance - it is too pink, if your camera can't adjust for white balance you absolutely have to correct it in a photo editing program. 4 flat contrast - again a small amout of photo editing can work wonders increasing the contrast.
Oh she's cute and I love the title. I get that often too. :-) Looking at this some things that I think might help this portrait would be to brighten it a bit and boost the contrast a little. It seems a little too dark and flat. Also a little soft, something a bit more light might help. Lastly, maybe a plain simple background that doesn't compete with her, as she is the star of the photo. She's a cutie, love those freckles! :-)
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