A very well composed and playful shot. You really captured the essence of this little boy's personality, something every portrait should do. Good luck!
I find this photo to be a candid rather than a portrait. For a portrait, the shadows cast over the eyes don't work for me. And the light cast on his check and feet overexpose the photo. Last, the background doesn't add to the photo, but rather it detracts. Hope this helps.
Portrait does not mean it has to be close up, but I would have liked to see this one with more towards the face and the cute smile. May have helped with the DOF also (going fuzzy) to bring all attention to the child.
Cute shot. Definitely meaningful to anyone that knows the subject and a good capture regardless. While you can't slow kids down for photos (don't I know that) I'll simply point out that the subject's left foot is a little hot and while his right foot seems to have a suggestion of motion because it appears blurry. This is a solid capture and I'm sure any relative would love to have it in an album or stuck to the refrigerator but from a technical standpoint a reflector or a little fill flash would do wonders by just brightening up the shadows on the subject's face. After the fact, though, you can still make some decent changes in Photoshop if you have it by creating a duplicate layer, using the polygon tool (2nd down on the right column) and selecting the darker areas around the eyes and blending down onto the bridge of the nose. Next feather the selection by 5-10 pixels (Select | Feather) and then in the Layers menu create a new Curves Adjustment Layer (its the little circle button at the bottom with a diagonal line through it, when you click it a new menu appears and you select "Curves". Now you can click in either the upper right or lower left corner (based on how your Curves is setup) and then use the arrow keys to move up and down until you actually lighten the shadows to blend them into the subject's brighter cheeks. This won't completely remove the shadows and you don't want to overdo it but I think its a useful tip to know and I think it would help this shot a little.
Kinda cute, but given that the title and the eyes are naturally drawn toward the feet, it's a shame they aren't in better focus. You could have cropped off the left hand side of the picture without loss. The subject's face is a bit too shadowy, as well. Nonetheless, if this were MY kid, I'd have this picture framed somewhere!
The location doesn't really inspire, mainly with the brown dirt on the left . Something closer in and vertical and just using some of the rocks behind for background might be stronger. The pose looks good though the hands 'scratching' the foot looks awkward. A reasonable attempt that could benefit from a less barren location.
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